






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 












•lx I^rtTODEI 


I ssued in a Convenient F orm For th e Pocke t, I 

Vol. 1. No. 315, March 16, 1885. Subscription $3C 




Entered at the Post Office, N. Y., as Second-Class Matter. 
Munro’s Library Is Issued Tri-Weekly. 


Sistm'ii Uct. 




By GERALDINE FLEMING, 

AUTHOR OF “ FALSE,” “ SUNLIGHT AND GLOOM,” ETC. 


NEW YOi K : 

NORMAN L. MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 
24 AND 26 Vandewater St. 


COPYRIGHTED BY KORMAN L. MUNRO, 1885. 










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SACBIFICE. 


By GERALDINE FLEMING, 


Author of False f '■'Sunlight and Oloomf etc.^ etc. 




Entered according to Act of Congress.^ in the gear 1885, by Nor- 
man L. AInnro., in the office of the Librarian of 
C'o'ngress, at Washingt07i., 1). (J. 



NOUMAN L. MQNRO, PUBLISHER, 

24 AND 26 VANDEWATER ST, 




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[COPYRIGHTED.] 

A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 


By GERALDINE FLEMING, 

Author of False f Sunlight and Gloom f etc.^ etc. 


CHAPTER I. 

WARD AND GUARDIAN. 

There are few places that look less cheerful on a wintry day 
than Lincoln’s Inn; yet there are many who find pleasure in 
that quiet relic of old London even in the dullest time of year. 
But there are habitues and natives of the place as it were— men 
who have been born and bred in the vicinity and found tolera- 
bly profitable employment in some of the solid buildings of the 
Inn itself. 

A stranger, taking it en route from Long Acre to Holborn, 
might give a glance of, more than usual interest at the heavy 
architraves and the smoke -blackened trees. Barristers of limited 
means, and literary men of studious habits, would be likely to 
thank Heaven that so near the very center of our modern Baby- 
lon, such a place of refuge still remains for the brain worker. 
But for the rest of the world it is simply a thoroughfare leading 
to other thoroughfares — a momentary lull from the roll of 
wheels and the sound of ceaseless footsteps, nothing to think of 
with a second thought, unless to wonder that the open space 
was not built upon. 

It had never looked more cheerless than it did c*n one October 
afternoon, when a young gentleman paid and dismissed his cab- 
man at the Holborn end of the Middle Turnstile, and turned his re- 
luctant footsteps toward the dingy buildings and the blackened 
trees. Once within the quiet precincts he paused and read a 
letter which he took from his pocket, walking slowly on the 
while. 

“You say that you are tired of waiting for the explanation I 
have so long deferred,” the letter ran, “ that unless I am pre- 
pared to give it to you at once, you will relieve me of all re- 
sponsibility and make your future your own care. I might an- 
swer by telling you this may not be in your power; but, as you 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


2 

are careful to mention, you are now in the last half of youi" 
twenty-first year — on the threshold of manhood, and able to 
judge for yourself. 

“ We will take that for granted, if you please. Whatever nay 
own opinion may be, I have no desire to strain our relationship 
as guardian and ward, and I do not wish you to decide upon 
leaving England with your friends upon a somewhat wild expe- 
dition till you have seen me; so come on Wednesday afternoon 
by four. If I am obliged to tell you things of an unsatisfactory 
and painful nature, you will remember that you forced the ex- 
planation from me. I would have had you wait.” 

It w’as signed Richard Channing, and addressed to Gerald 
Barry. 

Gerald Barry read it over more than once before he turned 
those reluctant footsteps toward the house where the name of 
Channing was engraved, in letters not much larger than text- 
hand, on a small brass plate let in the door. He had sought this 
interview, and waited impatiently for the appointment to be 
made; but, now that the veil was offered to his hand, he did not 
care to tear it from the prophet’s face; for Mr. Channing knew 
the story of his life, and of a life far dearer to him than his own. 
Whether the name he bore belonged to him or not, Gerald Barry 
could not say. Whether, when the truth was known, he stood 
in a position of independence or had to go forth into the world 
and earn his bread, he had not the remotest idea till he heard 
the explanation he had invoked. 

So on this chill October day Gerald paced slowly round the 
railed-in space wdiere the dead leaves from the blackened trees 
lay thickly on the stunted grass. If he had a regret belonging 
to the present, it was that he had written to his guardian in 
rather imperative terms; for he had never experienced anything 
but kindness at Mr. Channing’s hands. The youth paused 
nearly opposite the house, looked at the well-known door-plate, 
then, after a moment’s hesitation, went on, asking himself wdiat 
it was, what it could be, that he was afraid to hear. 

For hesitation was no part of Gerald Bariy’s character; he 
was prompt and resolute in what he had to do, though he always 
deliberated upon the consequences beforehand. Nature had 
done much for him mentally as well as physically; he was of 
medium height, well-built, and, thanks to athletics and exercise, 
finely developed; those who at first sight would have called him 
handsome, would after a second look have said sounder reserve; 
not that there was anything wanting, — there was too much of 
something,— a self-contained intensity which governed every 
expression. 

It had been said of him at school that he was like no other 
boy. Even in his games, at foot-ball, cricket, swimming, or on 
the water rowing, he was as settled and determined as a man, 
and from the first month of his entrance into Dr. Edwards’ es- 
tablishment. when he was thirteen years of age, the master, the 
tutor, and the boys themselves began to notice a striking pecul- 
iarity in his disposition; he was singularly unforgiving, not 


A SISTERS SACIilFICt B 

that he bore malice, but to offend him once was to lose his 
friendship forevei*. 

He was not a general favorite at school. There was a reserve 
about him which kept aw’-ay those who would have been his nat- 
ural companions; he \vas one of the few private pupils Dr. Ed- 
wards took personally to prepare for special examinations, but 
in Gerald's case the school was simply his home. He spent his 
lonely holidays there; though he had plenty of invitations, young 
as he was, he would not accept them. 

“ I have? no home and no relations,” he would say, “ and it 
would do me no good to see you in yours, and with all your 
people about you.” 

And to this he steadily adhered in spite of remonstrances; 
he had a dim idea in his proud young head that they who 
wanted to be his friends put an air of patronage into their well- 
meant offers;. When Dr. Edwards himself urged him to go, he 
said with sullen dignity: 

“ I would rather stay here, sir, if I am not in the way, and if 
I am in the way, I can keep to my own room.” 

“ You would make me angry if I did not know’ you so well,” 
said the kindly doctor. “ I am very glad to Lave you here, but 
I thought you would be happier with lads of your own age.” 

“ So I should, sir, if I were like them — if I had somewhere to 
ask them in return, but I have not a friend or relative in the 
world, and they have everything.” 

He did not say it enviously, but with an emotion he found it 
difficult to control. As far back as he could remember, until he 
reached his thirteenth year, he had been a doting mother’s lov- 
ing and only care. He had a recollection still of the strangely 
isolated existence they led, the sweet tranquillity in which they 
passed their days. He had asked her once h*ou’ old he was 
when his father died, and the answer had been a sad and tear- 
less silence that checked a repetition of the question ever after. 

But from that time a conviction crept into his mind that there 
w’as some sorrow’ or some shame connected with his father’s 
history, not his mother’s. The boy’s true instinct always led 
him to think of her as of a saint he loved with w’orship. She 
lived for him entirely; he never left her side. He did not go to 
school till she died, and at that bitter time no one attended the 
funeral but Mr. Channing, the doctor, and the landlady of the 
house they had "lived in. When he w’ent back to the pretty 
rooms, so desolate now, he knew that he had lost friend, com- 
panion, mother, and gentle monitress in one. He collected the 
books they had read together and put them aw’ay; he opened 
the piano knd touched the keys, then closed the instrument and 
turned aw’ay. She had made him a graceful and skillful player, 
but it was years before he touched the keys again. 

From this time his w’bole existence changed. He had some 
indistinct recollection of a long dreary time passed in a large 
strange house w’here Mr. Channing lived. Whether he was 
there w’eeks or months he could not say, but the people w’ere 
very kind to him, too kind, for he wanted to keep out of their 
w’ay, and then one morning Mr, Channing took him down to 


4 A SISTER^S sacrifice!. 

Dr. Edwards’ school near Surbiton, and there he had been ever 
since. 

In the earlier days of his school life he had seen his guardian 
twice a year, but when he grew old enough to be curious as to 
his antecedents and his prospects, and put embarrassing ques- 
tions, he was made to feel that his welcome was not so warm. 
His proudly sensitive spirit took ofifense on the instant, and he 
went no more. 

He wrote to Mr. Channing several times, but the kind and 
courteous answers he received gave him no satisfaction. His 
mother has told him to look to Mr. Channing for everything; 
that gentleman would tell him all there was to tell when the 
time came. 

Certainly Mr. Channing attend(*d to everything. He sent a 
check to Dr. Edwards every lialf year, paid Gerald’s tailor, boot 
maker, and hosier, and give him many a quiet sovereign over 
and above the regulation amount of pocket-mone}^ which was 
five shillings a week till he was fifteen, ten, till he was seven- 
teen, twenty till he was nineteen, and ten pounds a month 
afterward; but when Gerald wondered w’hether the time had 
come for him to be told what there was to tell, the answer took 
the shape of a handsome fishing-rod, a cricket- bat, a watch and 
chain, a dressing-case, or something that suited his advance to 
manhood; for the explanation he w^anted, the watchword was 
patience. 

Gerald had passed his twenty birthday when his patience 
gave out, and he wrote rather peremptorily to inform his guard- 
ian that he had an offer from a friend who was going to the 
Cape with a party of young gentlemen, who, wdth a little money, 
some technical knowledge, and a great deal of enthusiasm, 
were going to make El Dorado of Heaven knows what; but it 
meant enterprise, and venture, and excitement, quite enough 
for one like Gerald — dissatisfied with the past, doubtful as to 
the future, and more than half -suspecting that a cloud hung 
over his own birth or his father’s name. 

“ You advised me to stay with Dr. Edw’ards and finish my 
education in preference to going to college,” he said, in his final 
epistle, “ and I stayed. You told me there was no immediate 
necessity for me to choose a profession, and except that since I 
have studied to make myself useful in the Survey Department, 
I should not know how to earn fifty pounds a year, and if I may 
not ask it of my guardian, I demand it as my right, to be told 
what I have to expect, and what has so long been hidden from 
me.” 

It was the tone rather than the substance of Gerald’s letter 
that elicited the reply, though there was plenty more in the 
same strain. Mr. Channing had nothing to consider but what 
was best for his ward’s own sake; and after some thoughtful 
deliberalion, he thought it best to take the young man at his 
word. 

He did not do this, however, without a sigh of regret. 
Richard Channing had reasons of his own for holding Gerald in 


A SISTERS S SACRIFICE. 5 

more regard than is usually given by a legal guardian to a some 
what thankless charge. 

It was nearly a quarter past the hour appointed by Mr. Chan- 
ning before Gerald made his appearance in the office. Mr. 
Channing occupied what would have been the drawing-room 
had the handsome old house in Lincoln’s Inn been kept as a 
private residence. There were no rolls or packets of parchment, 
nests of pigeon-holes, or japanned tin boxes, with clients’ names 
upon them, here. A splendid library of legal books and reports 
of celebrated cases filled one side of the room from floor to ceil- 
ing; the others were covered with oil paintings of every tint 
and age; curious china jars, bronzes, and small rare works in 
marble crowded a massive sideboard; and there was a heavy 
cabinet, crowded with antique coins, cameos, intaglios, and un- 
cut gems. The furniture was upholstered in dark Russian leather; 
the somber colored paper, relieved with arabesques of dull 
gold, the heavy curtains and thick Turkey carpet conveyed a 
sense of absolute quiet almost depressing. The room looked like 
the lair of a virtuoso; the man himself would have been taken 
for anything but what he was. He might have been a prime 
minister, or antiquarian, or a cardinal. That somewhat long 
and grandly- thoughtful face— pale, reflective, and full of power 
— scarcely seemed as if it could belong to a lawyer — one of those 
of w’hom it has been said that it required a special act of par- 
liament of more than ordinary power to give them the rank of 
gentlemen. 

That bit of irony, well-merited as it is by too many who have 
crept into the profession, would have been out of place here. 
Richard Channing, in point of character and bearing, in dignity, 
physique and features, would have been at home in ihe House 
of Peers. 

“ The boy has yet to learn that punctuality is expected of a 
gentleman,” he said, looking at his watch. “I hope he will 
not disappoint me now.” 

An elderly clerk, portly, close-shaven, and dressed in black, 
with a raven gloss upon it, opened the inner door .softly. 

“ Mr. Gerald Barry, sir.” 

Channing simply inclined his head, and the young man was 
ushered in. As he stood in the shadow of the entrance, the 
solicitor rose with an involuntary start. 

“How strangely like,” bethought; if that unhappy man 
were living now, a single glance would convince him of the 
wrong he did to himself— and her.” 


CHAPTER II. 

TOO LIKE. 

It was nearly three years since Gerald and his guardian 
had met, by no fault of Mr. Channing’s, but be had no time to 
waste on a ward who was likely to prove refractory if not al- 
lowed to have his own way. These three years had made no 
more difference to the solicitor than three days; they had not 


0 


A SISTEIVS SACRIFICE, 


deepened a line on his fixed, commanding brow, or added one to 
the few silvery liairs which began to show on his temples before 
he was thirty, but these three years had made a striking differ- 
ence in Gerald. 

At eighteen he was a large, loose-limbed lad, with arrns that 
seemed too long for him, and the pure, healthy complexion, at 
once delicate and rich, that is more frequently seen in boys of 
that age than girls. Now his figure was well set together; the 
color had gone from his fine complexion; his features had taken 
the shape they were to wear; a shade of soft nut-brown whiskers 
and beard marked their proud outlines, and so, without know- 
ing it, he stood the living picture of his father before one who 
remembered his father well. 

“ Come in, Gerald,” Mr. Channing said. “Wheel that chair 
near the fire, and let me have a long look at you. How is it you 
have not been to me before ?” 

“ I would have come, sir, had I been aware you particularly 
desired to see me.” 

“There was no particular desire. I did not lose sight of 
your welfare, and I knew you were in good hands; but I could 
have wished you had given me more opportunity of keeping 
personally the promise I made. You were then somewhat 
proud, and a little shy, and you would, whenever you could, re- 
cur to a subject that could not be touched upon then.” 

He put a bottle of sherry and a silver basket of biscuits on the 
table, and filled two glasses, and raised his own to his lips with 
grave courtesy — a tacit pledge of friendship and protection. 

“ You want, by the tone of your letters,” he went on, “ an ac- 
count of my stewardship — to that you are welcome: and you 
want, as you have more than hinted at, an explanation about 
the unhappy circumstance that made your father’s name a for- 
bidden, or an unspoken word during your mother’s lifetime — 
that I am reluctant to give.” 

“ Why should you be ?” 

“ If you would wait — I cannot say for how long — whether for 
days, months, or years, you would not have to ask the question; 
the answer would come of itself.” 

“ But you see, sir,” said Gerald, with suppressed emotiou, 
“ how this must trouble me, to be kept in suspense, in 
doubt ” 

“ Stay,” Mr. Channing said, seeing that his young friend was 
likely to be overcome. “We will take these things in their 
proper places, and first speak of your prospects, dealing with 
them as if you were of age to-day. Briefly, then, you have an* 
income of not quite four hundred a year, and this includes the 
sum derivable from the capital added during your minority; it 
is a small independence, and leaves you free to select a gentle- 
manly profession or live at jour ease as your inclination may 
dictate. If you have been led to think you would have more, I 
am sorry.” 

“ No, sir; I did not think I should have so much. I thought 
my mother’s income was about five pounds a week, but I did 
not know whether it would come to me,” 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 

7 

You are not very far wrong, but there was a thousan^ or so 
iu hand, and rather more than a thousand has accumulated 
while you were at school, — you shall see for yourself how I have 
invested it, — and the result is nearly four hundred a year.” 

Whose money was this, Mr. Channing?” 

“ Your mother s; every penny.” 

“ Then my father had none?” 

“ He died worse than bankrupt; saved — for the sake of those 
who had known him in better days— from dying in a debtor’s 
prison. You liave very little to thank your father for, Gerald. 
You owe everything to your mother for what you are and what 
you have.” 

The youth was not inclined to be ungrateful to her whose 
memory he cherished so dearly, but to hear his father spoken of 
in such terms was a blow to him. He liked to picture to himself 
what that father might have been ; it was hard to have his dreams 
broken into by those few stern words. 

“When my mother was very ill,” he said, lowering his voice, 
“ when the doctor bad come, and, I believe at her request, told 
her she had not long to live, she sent forme, and said: ‘You 
once asked me, Gerald, how old you were when your father 
died. I could not tell you then — I cannot now. You are too 
young to understand; but you may trust Mr. Channing always, 
and when the time comes he will tell you all there is to be told!’ 
My mother spoke those words, Mr. Clianuing; I can recall them 
as distinctly as I heard them then.” 

“ And what,” asked Richard Channing, gravely, “ do you infer 
from them now?” 

“ This — a mother could not take a son in confidence on some 
subjects, no matter what his age might be; but I was then too 
young to understand the very nature of this — that would sug- 
gest its delicate and painful character.” 

“ So far you are right.” 

“ And I can go no further, Mr. Channing; you set me too 
heavy a task. You have already half condemned my father, 
more^ by your manner than your words, aud you have not told 
me vvhy he should be condemned. 1 ask the rest from you. 
You accepted the trust from my mother for me. I claim it 
now.” 

Mr. Channing looked at the young man as a surgeon might 
when measuring the strength of a patient about to undergo an 
operation. What he saw in Gerald’s face determined him; he 
stirred the fire thoughtfulh^ and drank his sherry. He had list- 
ened to strange confidences in that room; it had been his lot to 
tell strange truths to clients for whom his heart bled, but he had 
never fiinched from it as he did from this. 

“ When,” he began at last, “ you asked your mother how old 
you were when your father died, you laid your hand, with a 
child’s innocence, on a cruel wound she had always kept hid- 
<len. Your father at that time had not been dead a year.” 

“ Not a year, and 1 was then f hirteeu, and I do not remember 
ever seeing him.” 

“ I do not suppose you ever saw him unless by accident; your 


8 A SISTER^S SACRIFICE, 

father and your mother separated less than three months after 
you were born. 

“ You have not seen much of the world, Gerald,” he went on, 
“but a man who has newspapers and boohs at his command be- 
comes as wise in his generation as he who can judge of his fel- 
low creatures by personal experience, so the story of your moth- 
er’s separation will not be very strange to you, whatever else it 
may be. 

‘‘Your mother was the daughter of a retired naval officer, 
and when your father met her, was one of the most beautiful 
women of her day; she had been brought up in a strict and 
strait-laced fashion, by a couple of puritanical maiden aunts, 
and as a girl is sure to do when so brought up. she formed a se- 
cret attachment which resulted in discovery; her lover was sent 
away, and she herself kept in strict seclusion. I am telling you 
this so that you may be the better prepared for what followed.” 

“She ran away?” suggested Gerald. 

“No, there was no chance of that, but she accepted the first 
offer that came, as a way of escape from intolerable restraint 
and bondage, and it came in the person of your father, a ver}*^ 
handsome man with good means and brilliant manners, and the 
temper of a demon. He was a man who lived two lives as it 
were. In society he was a Chesterfield. Amongst his own set — 
club men, press men, and^the graceful roues of bachelor London, 
he was a leading spirit, and an evil one, but he changed when 
he married — for a time. Then he went back to his old habits 
and associates. Not that he cared for your mother less, but 
she belonged to him, he could trust her, he could go home when 
he chose, and always find her there; in short he left her to her 
own devices while he went his own w'ay. Her instincts were 
refined and delicate, her temperament poetic and sentimental, 
if not romantic; he was a man who rarely opened a book, and 
half an hour’s music bored him, and if he happened to go home, 
and find her room filled with intellectual people he endured it 
for a few minutes, and then returned to his club. I may say he 
was passionately fond of her long after she had ceased to care 
for him. Let what I am telling you, Gerald, be a lesson to you 
in your own future; such things take place every day and they 
come home to every man. 

“ When they had been married about two years, — he going 
further away from her in his own pursuits, and she finding her 
own time grow more heavy,— her former lover came back to 
England. He w^as a man w^ho suited her in every w^ay, fond of 
music and books, a poet himself in some degree, physically 
delicate, mentally one of those Werther and water like indi- 
viduals wiio can live for a sentiment and think of suicide when 
they find themselves thinking of wrong. He met your mother 
at the house of a mutual friend, met her very frequently!” 

At this point Mr. Channing saw the young man’s face darken 
ominously. This was not the story he expected to hear of that 
mother whose memory he so revered. 

“ Their friend, a lady who had known them both from child- 
hood, thought it very charming to assist in this prettv little 


A STSTER^S SACRIFICE, 


!romance. She made opportunity for them to meet; took care, 
without thinking of the mischief she was doing, to whisper about 
lier old engagement. Your mother was a neglected wife, mairied 
to a man who by this time had made a reputation for himself 
which caused her to be looked upon as a martyr, and her old 
lover was sympathized with. The poor fellow had been so 
faithful, and he loved her still,' but with such reverence and 
thoughtfulness; it was a gentle homage of which a queen might 
have been proud. 

“I must say,’’ Mr. Channing went on, watching each change 
of Gerald’s countenance, “ that the man himself, in an inoffen- 
sive, harmless way, did much to make their story the talk of 
society — the society of amateurs in the arts and minor sciences. 
He painted dainty little sketches in water-colors of the plans 
he had seen during his travels, and sent them to her with 
bits of description taken from his diary. He wrote pretty songs 
and set them to music — lovelorn ditties about blighted hopes 
and dreams of the past. ‘ Thou art gone from me forever,’ ‘ Yet 
I’m happy w’hen I’m near thee,’ and a score of others, all in- 
tended as the outpourings of his soul to her, and much admired 
in the drawing-rooms when they were known. They were pub- 
lished at his owui expense, and what the music sellers thought 
of them I would rather not say.” 

“You have described a sentimental fool,” said Gerald, “not 
the less mischievous that he was a fool. What did my father 
say to this ?” 

“ He never knew it till the last. There was a foolish secrecy 
thrown over the whole affair. Your mother and he were so far 
estranged that she did not mention Mr. Ashby’s return to him, 
and the two men never met. They did move in the same set, and 
that in London means they might as well have been travelers in 
separate deserts. He lieard it at last from some junior mem- 
bers of his club, whose sisters knew the storj". This was about 
the time you were born. 

“ When you know what club gossip is,” Mr. Channing said, 
impressively, “ you will see how easily a little thing, slight ih 
itself, becomes magnifiefl, distorted, and perverted till it grows 
into a monster. Your father, picking up this gossip bit by bit, 
began to wonder why he had not heard it before. Ashby had 
been in London twelve months or more, the constant companion 
of his wife, his name always coupled with hers, and yet she had 
never mentioned her old lover’s name to him— her husband. 

He was a morbidly jealous man, and from the first he had 
hated this elegant, effeminate dilettante, whom he had never 
seen. He made inquiries, and what he gathered, part truth, 
part falsehood, and part exaggeration, was, on the surface, 
enough to condemn his wife, of course. I do not think he ever 
believed vour moth.er really guilty, but he found that he had 
been laughed at for his blindness, blamed for neglecting his 
beautiful young wife, and pitied because the inevitable result 
came to him. No one feels such a thing more keenly than an 
accomplished roue when retribution is meted out to him in 
kind; he, the brilliant, fascinating, irresistible, had been stricken 


10 


.4 SISTER'S SACRIFICE, 


where he thought himself most invulnerable, by a man he would 
have held in supreme contempt, and what followed is an old 
scandal, dead many years ago. He took his riding- whip and 
sought out Mr. Ashbv, whom he found at a convevsazione in a 
half -private room— there are plenty of them between Piccadilly 
and Portman Square. Your mother was there; he called her 
the foulest names he could employ; charged her openly with 
that which rankled in his mind, mad with morbid anger and 
jealousy, and then, after lashing poor Ashby mercilessly, he 
threw him, half-senseless, at his feet. You w^ould have this 
explanation, Gerald, and you are not strong enough to bear 

it-” 

“Go on,” said Gerald, hoarsely, “having gone so far. Is 
there more ?” 

“Yes, the worst. He came to me, not to consult me, but to 
tell me what he had resolved to do. He had sworn never to live 
with his wife again; he wanted her to leave his house and re- 
nounce his name; and he took an oath so bitter, that I shuddered 
when I heard it, that if she did not, he would sue for a divorce, 
and swear you were no child of his.” 

“ He said that!” 

And, vdth a stifled cry, he dropped his head into his hands. 

“ He said that to her, and in my presence, for I went with 
him. He would have taken a strange solicitor had I not gone; 
and my regard for her made me anxious for secrecy. I reasoned 
with him — I told him that, with a little time, I could sift this 
gossip to its source, and show him that, after all, there had been 
nothing more than indiscretion. He would not listen to me, and 
I saw he was determined.” 

“ How did you act then, Mr. Channing?” 

“ I advised your mother, for her own sake and yours, since it 
involved your birthright, to risk a trial in the divorce court 
rather than surrender her position and yours. But she was 
frightened; her indiscretions, innocent as they were, would have 
caused her to be sneered at. smiled at in derision, and doubted. 
She told me simply that it would have killed her, and it would.” 

“ And so she left him ?” 

“Yes, taking nothing but her own money, not so much as a 
trinket he had bought her. She would have gone to her own 
friends, but they turned their backs upon her; they accepted her 
submission as a confession of guilt. She never complained, she 
never uttered a word in her own defense; she gave her life to 
you, Gerald, upheld to the last by the consciousness of her own 
innocence, and the love you gave her,” 

“And she was innocent,” said Gerald, through his tears. 
“ To my last hour, Mr. Channing, 1 shall thank you for your 
faith in her, though, in giving way to a jealous tyi-ant, she re- 
signed my birthright. I do not know, I cannot say, but that in 
my father’s place 1 should have done as he did; but he had only 
to judge his wife, I have to remember my mother.” 

“ Think of her always,” said Mr. Channing, gently. “ Think 
of her, should the time ever come, when you have to judge your 
wife as your father had to judge his.” 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


11 


CHAPTER III. 

THE OLD ROOMS. 

Nothing could have been further from Gerald’s expectation 
than the story he had heard from Richard Channing; he won- 
dered who and what that father was by whom he had been so 
cruelly repudiated, and, in spite of the loving manner in which 
he still held the memory of his mother, he could not forget that 
her weakness had lost him his birthright. 

“ I am not likely to marry,” he said, in answer to the solicit • 
or’s last words; “for if my own mother, who was all her life 
as pure as the angels she is with, could even innocently be so in- 
discreet as to risk her name and sacrifice my future, how could 
I trust any other woman in the world ? ’ 

“That is the feeling you must guard against, Gerald. At 
your age such a story as 1 have told you is very likely to make 
you an amateur Diogenes — a second-hand Byronic misanthrope, 
interesting to very young girls and those who take their heroes 
from their books, but pitiful, not to say contemptible, to men 
and women of experience and common-sense. Do not marry 
till you can give your whole faith to your wife, and do not, 
under any circumstances, marry without consulting me.” 

“ Am I not, then, a free agent in that ?” ' 

“ Oh, yes, quite; a free agent altogether if it pleases you, mine 
is a request made for your own good.” 

Under the quiet dignity of the rebuke implied in Mr. Chan- 
ning’s tone, Gerald bowed. 

“ You have not told me,” he said, “ how my father died. Did 
he, at the very last, see my mother and speak of me ?” 

“ Never. He went to the bad utterly; he knew in his heart 
he had done wrong, but his morbid temper and perverted pride 
would not let him say so. I believe he would have been glad 
had your mother gone to him, but the life he was living made 
his moods so contradictory that he would have been as likely to 
receive her with an oath as an apology; and as the time wore 
on, she, thinking more deeply of what he had done, settled 
down to the conviction that they were better apart. She had 
her quiet da 5 ’'s and you to fill her heart and occupy her mind.” 

“ Was there no hope of a reconciliation ?” 

“None. Your mother, as 1 have said, could not seek for it, 
and the man who caused the mischief sent for your father to 
give him his dying word as to her innocence.” 

Did my father go?” 

“ No; he said that such a man, a sentimental hypocrite, would 
not mind dying with a lie upon his lips if only from the grave 
he could laugh at the husband he had wronged, and do a last 
romantic service to her. Had your father lived till now, Gerald, 
nature itself would have convinced him, for you are very like 
him — too like him.” 

' “ If you mean in looks, I am not sorry,” said Gerald. “ And 
as for my nature it is not for you to say. I thank you for this 


12 


A SISTEli^S SACRIFICE. 


explanation, Mr. Channing. I asked you for it, and I am glad 
to have it. Now tell me, please, whose name I bear ?” 

Your sponsor’s— not your father’s.” 

“What was bis?” 

“Do you want to bear a name he forced your mother to re- 
nounce?” said Mr. Channing, reproachfully. “ A name that he 
himself denied you ? Would it not be wise to make the one you 
have worthy of that which may be yours some day ? For re- 
member this, Gerald, in taking your father’s name you force 
yourself upon bis relatives, and you might not be welcome to 
them.” 

The young man listened and reflected; he was singularly calm 
now. The solicitor could not help noticing that he had grown 
older within an hour; his very voice was different, he spoke de- 
liberately and slowly, measured his words before he uttered 
them, and showed no trace of impulse or emotion. Mr. Chan- 
ning did not like the change. 

“1 understand,” said Gerald, bitterly. “I am worse than 
nameless. I shall not ask you for my father’s name, Mr. Chan- 
ning. I shall find it for myself when I want it.” 

“ Do not begin the search. Accept my advice and act as if 
you stood alone in the world. Show your own nature without 
fear; choose your own course.” 

“ Will you suggest one?” said Gerald, with grave irony. “ I 
myself have looked ruefully at the beaten tracks and they seem 
trodden by too many feet already, and I do not think I have 
sufidcient inventive genius to strike out a new one. It might be 
worth my money if I went out as I thought of doing.” 

“ Nonsense! That kind of life is the last resource for improv- 
ident idlers sent out by their parents or relatives with the hope 
that they may never return. There is generally something dis- 
honest or disgraceful at the bottom of it, and when there is not 
they are sent out, not so much for their own good as for the 
peace of mind and economy of those who send them. A gentle- 
man with an income such as yours should find a better course.” 

“Go through the list, Mr. Channing, and tell me what there 
is. I have no special talent unless it is for music; I can play the 
violin, and I should make an indifferently good pianist, but this 
is not what you would term a practical quality.” 

“Scarcely, nor one requiring much strain upon the intellect; 
music and oratory belong to the minor arts; both may exist in 
thoroughly illiterate persons, of less than the average intelli- 
gence.” 

“ So it seemed to me by what I have seen, yet my violin is my 
most pleasant companion at times.” 

“Keep it for that only; but you must w^ork, Gerald. Your 
income is not large enough to let you have your time all idle. A 
year or tw'o’s traveling might do you good, and I would take 
upon myself to give you whatever extra money you might re- 
quire.” 

“I should not care to travel alone, sir. I shall take things 
quietly for a year or so. I have planned out a course of reading 
for myself, and I want to study human nature, I may meet 


A SISTEIVS SACRIFICE. 13 

with some kindred spirit as the time goes on, and when I do I 
will travel. Not before.” 

“ You are certainly old enough for your age,” Mr. Channing 
reflected, “and how you will stand the ordeal remains to be 
seen. 

“Have you made any arrangements for the present?” he 
asked. 

“ Not yet, sir.” 

“ Then you had better spend a few days with me.” 

Gerald shook his head. 

“ I thank you very much, but I could not. I know you 
mean it in the purest kindness, but I am only fit for my owm 
society at present.” 

“ Well, if there is anything I can do for you tell me.” 

“ You could do nothing better for me than suggest or find 
some occupation; your influence is large in your own circle, and 
you know me. If I went to a stranger, I have no credentials, 
and I could not tell any one wdiat I am, since I do not know, but 
you could ans\A er for me.” 

“What is your ambition ?” 

“Ambition,” Gerald repeated, “ what a mockery this word is 
to me. Well, my present ambition is to make money — add to 
my income no matter by how little at first. I have no taste for 
a profession and I should not care for drudgery, and I want to 
turn my gifts and acquirements to the best account I can.” 

“ Would you take a situation in a bank ?” 

“As a clerk? No.” 

“ You could scarcely go in as a partner,” smiled Mr. Chan- 
ning; “your objection is, I suppose, to the sedentary nature of 
the employment.” 

“ That is it. I w’ant activity, life, action, anything which will 
throw me into contact with the world and show me what metal 
I am made of.” 

“ Will you take a trial here?” said Mr. Channing. “ I want a 
thoroughly confidential representative, a gentleman, in fact, 
wuth tact and good breeding; he need not know the difference 
between common law and chancery practice, or that moral 
equity and legal equity are not the same. But he must be one 
who, while keeping to the spirit of his instructions, will use his 
own discretion as to the letter. Many of my clients live far 
away, and I cannot always go in person, and, so far as I have 
found yet, no representative working simply for hire is always 
to be trusted.” 

“You are honoring me very highly, sir, in offering me such a 
post.” 

“lam putting my trust in your mother’s son, Gerald, that is 
all. I want a gentleman who will not pry into my secrets, or 
give a second thought to anything my clients may confide in him, 
except when it concerns me. By the way, I recollect that when 
you were younger one of your favorite pastimes was collecting 
crests and mottoes and tracing them to their source. You told 
me once that you could enter the lists against Sir Bernard Burke, 
and prove that there are as many anachronisms in Heralds' Col- 


14 A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 

lege as there are in Scott’s novels and Shakespeare’s historical 
plays. You were in jest, of course ?” 

“Partly,” said Gerald, with a smile. “ I can only say that it 
is still my favorite study as a pastime, and that I have a pro- 
found contempt for those who would build up a special claim to 
illustrious ancestry upon it.” 

“Make it your favorite pastime still,” Mr. C banning said, 
gravely; “ or do it as serious work, and keep your contempt for 
pastime. You know the old story of the image breaker — the 
Iconoclast who destroyed some glorious works of art, and ended 
by worshiping the fragments as idols till he went mad.” 

“Or till he recovered his reason,” said Gerald. “But this 
position you have found for me, sir?” 

“You can begin on Monday. You shall have your first in- 
structions then.” 

“ And the terms? I mention them because I want you to give 
me exactly what you would give any one else. I trust you 
understand me.” 

“ Yes. I will give you two guineas a week and your traveling 
expenses when you are required to leave London, and you shall 
study human nature to your heart’s content, Gerald. More so 
perhaps than to your satisfaction.” 

“Two guineas a week, and an occupation,” mused Gerald. 
“Yes, that will do.” 

“It is as much as a doctor or a barrister would make in the 
first year of his practice, and, taking the average, more than 
good men get in the best commercial houses. You would set a 
higher value upon it if you had no income of your own.” 

“Pardon me, Mr. Channing, I value it more than I do my in- 
come; it is the kind of work I want, and I shall like it. On 
Monday — at what time?” 

“ Eleven. Will you come to Tunbridge on Sunday ?” 

“ I must say no. I want the next few days for reflection, for 
self-communion; you have given me plenty of fooc^" for it. I am 
ten years older than I was when I came in at a quarter past 
four.” 

“Things that change the course of a whole existence take 
place in less time than we have been together,” said Mr. Chan- 
ning, “ and you have heard the worst, at its worst; a change 
for the better may come at any moment, but very much depends 
upon yourself. Shall I see you before Monday?” 

“ I will call if you wish it.” 

“No; but I should like to know where I may find you should 
any emergency arise.” 

“ I can tell you to-morrow. I wrote, when I determined upon 
seeing you, to the person who keeps the house where my mother 
and I used to live. I thought if I decided to remain in town, I 
should like our old rooms again. They were let then, but she 
did not know whether her present lodgers might be going. If I 
cannot have them, I shall get an agent to find some for me, and 
stay, meantime, at some hotel.” 

“You will know by to-morrow,” said Mr. Channing, as he 


A SlSTER^S SACniFICE. 15 

rose. “ You have had a heavy blow, Gerald, and I am glad to 
see you stand so well against it.” 

He shook hands with his ward, and touched a bell on the 
table. There were clients waiting for him. but he was not 
a man to be disturbed till he had finished what he bad in 
hand. 

“ The boy bears it well,” he said to himself, “ but it has done 
him no good. He has a strong nature, and I saw it grow hard 
and cold as I went on. I am glad that w'hen he knew all, he 
still spoke of the old rooms his mother lived in; and 1 wish, 
without breaking faith, I could tell him how much depends 
upon himself. It is something, however, to have him with me; 
yet it was a strange choice for him to make.” 

Strange as it was, the young man had a deeper reason for 
making it than Mr. Channing suspected. “ Here, in this solici- 
tor,” Gerald said to himself, “ is the keeper of a secret that be- 
longs to me; he holds the clew to my parentage, the name my 
father gave my mother and would not give me; and it will be 
hard indeed if, being always on the watch, some accident does 
not place that clew in my hands.” 

He took a cab, and told the man to drive him to that portion 
of the metropolis known as South Belgravia to those who live 
in it, and impolitely termed Pimlico % irreverent outsiders. 
There are some handsome houses in that curious neighborhood 
— large, lofty, and roomy, and well-appointed in everything ex- 
cept the propriety of the residents. It would require a high 
and recognized position, or moral courage of a very powerful 
order, for any man with a good name and a solid income, to 
plant himself in the midst of that labyrinth chiefly populated 
with lodgers of a professional and semi- professional character, 
and some, too many, about whose profession there can be no 
doubt whatever. 

Gerald stopped his cab about midway down Calverton Street, 
a long, stately thoroughfare, without a brick in it, and leading 
direct from Esloup Street to the river. Calverton Street ran 
parallel with St. Champion Square, and partook largely of its 
character. The names of its inhabitants could be found year 
after year in the London Directory; the houses were large, 
and, for the situation, cheaply rented to a degree. One or two 
composers of some eminence, a few retired gentlemen of sub- 
stantial rank in the army, more than one leading member of 
stock companies belonging to the best London theaters, and 
some distinguished musicians, helped to fill the list. The rest 
were the poorer gentry, people at whose doors carriages with 
coroneted panels might be seen, and to whom a hamper of game 
was a welcome saving of the butcher’s bill. The rest of the 
houses, perhaps nearly a dozen, were lodging-houses pure and 
simple. 

The house at which the driver stopped his cab, number 107, 
was of these. Gerald Barry remembered it very well indeed; he 
had never lost sight of the kind-hearted lady, Mrs. Hormsby; 
he never forgot her thoughtful respect and attention to his 
mother. Every Christmas he had contrived to send her some- 


16 


A SISTEli^S SACRIFICE, 


thing, if only a post-oflace order for a sovereign, which increased 
as his years and means did into a five pound note. A boy has 
a wonderful memory for a kindness done for any one he loves. 
These lasting friendships and long hatreds that never die till 
their object is dead in men, do not often take root in child- 
hood. 

The door was opened before he had time to more than touch 
the knocker, and Gerald found his hand held fast by a pretty 
black-eyed woman of something under forty, and as light in her 
heart and on her feet as a girl of twenty. 

“ You have come soon, Master Gerald,” she said, dimpling 
with welcome, “ 1 should hardly have thought you had time to 
get my letter, my Chris only posted it this mornijig. He was 
that pleased to think you was coming back.” 

“Mr. Hormsby and I were always good friends,” said Gerald 
in his kindly grave way, a way that had been coming to him for 
the last year or so, and had settled upon him during that hour in 
Lincoln’s Inn, “ so I may infer that you have the rooms for me.” 

“Just ready. We have hardly had time to take the steps 
down- stairs and clear away the dusters. But which rooms will 
you want?” 

“Those my mother had, with the exception of the second bed- 
room. I must send for my luggage from Dr. Edwards’. I have 
nothing here but what I stand upright in. You will bring me 
up some tea presently, and then we will have a talk.” 

The little landlady stroked bis head with grateful affection. 
There was the same kind voice with its new depth, the same air 
of frankness with its new dignity of manner; but he was no 
longer her Master Gerald. She looked at him with a sense of 
pain rather than disappointment. She had seen just such an 
expression of settled trouble on his mother’s face as his wore 
now. 


CHAPTER IV, 

JEANNETTE. 

It was nearly seven years since Gerald had set foot in those 
apartments, but when he went in now everything seemed famil- 
iar to him; the very carpet was the same, and looked little the 
worse for wear. The careful use of crumb-cloths for the center, 
the substitution of new pieces for the strips worn out reaching 
from the door to the pier-glass, the periodical application of mal- 
odorous renovators, and the daily application of a brush, not a 
broom, kept it in such a condition that the changes of time and 
wear were imperceptible. 

Yes, the room was just the same; there was the massive 
mahogany sideboard, with the well-known equestrian figure of 
Charlemagne in bronzed plaster, the suit in dark-green velvet, 
and the deep-seated invalid chair. There were three or four dull 
old paintings after somebody— two of them meaning Telemachus 
and Calypso, and one large enough to form a drop for a full-size 
scene, representing an elderly gentleman in the costume of a 
lightly attired athlete, and three little boys, evidently his grand- 


A SISTEKS SACRIFICE. 


17 


children, startled by the advent of a tall lady with a long spear; 
her costume consisting of a helmet, a cuirass, and a little 
drapery that was probably an aftertliought. Gerald was well 
acquainted with the mythology and the Iliad, but he never 
could discover who that lady was or what the picture meant. 

The differences and incongruities that might have made a 
stranger smile rendered these old rooms the more dear to Ger- 
ald; he knew how bright and homely they had looked. There 
was plenty of space when the folding-doors were thrown open, 
thirty feet or more of carpet between the front window and the 
back, with plenty of furniture for comfort, and nothing, as Mrs. 
Hormsby said, to spoil. Gerald could throw his eleven stone 
of muscular manhood upon the sofa without fear of having the 
screw of the caster splinter the leg, and sit in a chair without 
dislocating every joint. Her Chris, as the little landlady called 
her sturdy, hard-working husband, had spent all bis savings 
and her own in getting this house together, and he had done it 
well. Piece by piece he had picked it up at private sales, and got, 
for a couple of hundred pounds, a better houseful than he could 
have bought at a shop for five times the money. 

There was one thing he was pleased to see in its old place, a 
small oblique trichord piano that just fitted into the recess be- 
tween the front-room fireplace and the folding-doors; be opened 
it and touched the keys softly. Lingering over them, he invol- 
untarily strayed into some rambling, plaintive music, suggested 
by associations. It was in perfect time and harmony, but it had 
never been played or written before. It was an accompaniment 
to his thoughts, — dream music, when the dreams are of those 
who dream while awake. 

He heard a quick footstep in the room; a tray was placed on 
the table, and the cloth arranged without a sound. He let the 
music die away, and whirled round to Mrs. Hormsby with a 
smile. Her eyes were full of tears. 

“ The first time I have touched a piano,” he said, “ since 
I closed this, seven years ago.” 

And I could not help thinking, sir” — he was no longer Master 
Gerald; that somewhat sad but stern face belonged to a man of 
thought and power — “ I could not help thinking of Mrs. Barry 
when you played like that; it is just as she used to play.” 

“I was playing then for her,” he said, quietly; “her spirit 
found the music, I only touched the keys. The old rooms look 
very much as they did. How did you manage it? Bit down, 
please, I want you to talk while I have my tea. I begin to feel 
at home. Seven years ago, Mrs. Hormsby — it does not seem as 
many days — I can scarcely realize what happened then. There 
are some who cling to us so, even after death, that I feel as if, 
at this very moment, my mother might come in and take her 
old place here.” 

“ It always seems to me as'df the rooms belonged to her more 
than to anybody else, and yet we have had some nice people in 
them. There was Colonel Dollard took the whole house once, 
and then we had an Indian family with a black servant — what 
they call an ayah.” 


18 


A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE, 


“Yes; an ayah.” 

“ Ah, dear, I thought I should have gone out of my mind. 
They would have no one else cook for them, and to see her with 
her black fingers in the curries and chutnies, and kissing the 
children — ugh!” 

“ It is a matter of custom, Mrs. Hormsby. I have seen you 
fondle a black cat, and color, you know, is only skin deep.” 

“ Well, I do like the best color outside,” said the little woman, 
heartily. “ Not that I minded her after a bit, for a kinder creat- 
ure never lived ; but she used to dress in such a curious man- 
ner, with a long white veil hanging down her back and drawn 
over her forehead. She looked like a ghost. We had a young 
gentleman at the top of the house; he was studying for a chem- 
ist; he used to read a great deal and take brandy to keep him 
awake, and the first time he saw her, not knowing she was 
here, he went into a fit.” 

“Of laughter? Gentlemen who study at night and drink 
brandy to keep them awake are subject to hysteria.” 

“ Well, it was partly that, but my Chris and Mr. Alison, the 
gentleman who has the dining-room, said it was delirium tre- 
mens. I don’t know what it means, but he was very bad over 
it.” 

“He would be,” assented Gerald. “May I ask you, Mrs. 
Hormsby, who taught you to broil a partridge; it appears to be 
an improvement on the orlhodox method.” 

“There was another gentleman, a great traveler, he used to 
make me that vexed you couldn’t believe. He advised me to 
put my stock- pot into the pig-tub and empty my sauces dowui 
the s-ink. He would have a pheasant cooked like a roast fowl, 
and small birds like that partridge,— -split and broiled with but- 
ter, salt, and cayenne.” 

“I must compliment him on his judgment, and you on your 
good sense in following it. I did not think I should eat a mor- 
sel to-day, nor for many days; but I begin to feel at home. 
You are an old friend at least the past has left me. I want to 
ask you some serious questions, and may tax your memory a 
little.” 

“If I can tell you anything, sir, I will: is it about your ” 

“My mother, yes; you may mention her quite freely — quite,” 
but he put his hand to bis heart before he went on. “ By the 
way I should like to know something about my fellow lodgers; 
it is unpleasant to run against people on the stairs without 
knowing whether they belong to the house or not.” 

“We are quite full now, sir. You have the principal rooms 
— these and the front room overhead; then there is Mr. Ali- 
son, in the dining-room; he is studying for a doctor, and 
goes up for his examination soon; the top room, over your bed- 
room, is two of my Chris’ shopmates; they take their meals 
with us, and you never hear them»about the house. You don’t 
mind their being cabinet-makers, I suppose?” she added apolo- 
getically. 

“I do not think I should mind, even if they were black- 
smiths,” said Gerald, “ so tliey did not bring the forge and anvU 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


19 


with them in the middle of the night. The rest of the house I 
imagine is occupied by yourselves, the children, and the serv- 
ant.” 

“ All except what used to be your bedroom, over the back 
drawing-room.” 

“Next then to my bedroom that is; this is a serious consid- 
eration,” he said with a gravity so well assumed that the little 
landlady thought he was serious, “not another young gentle- 
man who reads at night, and takes brandy to keep himself 
awake. 1 strongly object to fitful people.” 

“ That room is let to Miss Daniel. Jeannette we call her, she 
has been here nearly ever since you went away. They had 
these rooms first, till her father failed in business and died 
abroad. Then tliey bad the dining-room, they could not afford 
the two guineas for these, and 1 think the pound I charged 
them for the other was a drag upon them. Then the mother 
died, and the poor young lady, liking to be wdth me, took 
the one she has now, which I let her have for seven shil- 
lings, not that she should want a bed if I had to turn my Chris 
out of his.” 

Interested in a moment by a story that in some part resembled 
his own, Gerald tried for further information. 

“And this young lady, how does she live now ? Has she any 
income ?” 

“ Not a shilling except her own earnings; and so pretty, too! 
If you were to see her. Master Gerald!” His softened face took 
her back to his boyhood. “ She does anything — lace- mending, 
fancy needlework; sometimes she sings and plays at private 
parties, and she teaches music.” 

“Poor girl!” sighed Gerald. “Another one in the hopeless 
throng! Pretty; beautiful perhaps ” — for this dear, good-hearted 
soul could find no higher terms than pretty for a face like that 
of the Madonna — “ I should like to see her.” 

“ When no one is here,” Mrs. Hormsby said, “ she comes to 
practice at the piano. You should hear Iier play! No one ever 
played like her to my mind except Mrs. Barry. Miss Daniel 
tells me the piano is never learned, there is always something 
new in it, and constant practice is essential— that is her own 
word.” 

“Tell the young lady that the piano is entirely at her serv- 
ice,” Gerald said. “ I shall be out from ten every day, and 
sometimes absent for days together. I am going to work, Mrs. 
Hormsby.” 

“You, sir?” 

“ Pray will you tell me why you smile? I am going to add 
to my income by just as much as will cover my rent — two 
guineas a week.” 

“ Thirty-five shillings writhout the extra room.” 

“Well, I daresay the extras will fill out the rest. Does Miss 
Daniel take her meals with you and Mr. Hormsby’s shopmates ?” 

“Now and then she does, when she happens to come m and 
there has been no fire in her room. There’s not a bit of pride 
about her; and many a pleasant evening we have had up here, 




so 


A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE. 


Mr. Alison, and my Chris, and the two young men, for we are 
empty now and then for a few weeks, and as my Chris says, it’s 
just as well to be jolly over it; and Miss Jeannette plays and 
sings to us as if we were lords and ladies; and that reminds me. 
You will find a book on the back table there, tied with strings; 
it’s full of pictures she’s done herself.” 

Gerald went into the back room and found a small thick port- 
folio well filled with pencil drawings, outline crayons, and 
sketches in water colors. He began to grow more deeply inter- 
ested still with the lady who was not above taking her meals 
with the “shopmates,” and giving entertainments of song and 
music to them and Mr. Alison. He took the trouble to wonder 
what Mr. Alison was like. He began to take an unreasonable 
dislike to young gentlemen who occupied dining-rooms and were 
studying for a doctor. As for the “shopmates,” he felt that 
he could no longer tolerate cabinet-makers sleeping over his 
head. 

He was turning the contents of the portfolio over when he 
heard a light and rapid footstep on the stairs, and the door of 
the front room was opened. There were glasses over each man- 
tel-piece, and each of these was faced by one that reached to 
the ceiling with a dark malachite console for its pedestal. Look- 
ing into one before him, Gerald had the full ad vantage of facing, 
unseen, and studying the lady who had come in. 

This was Jeannette, Miss Daniel. He felt certain of it from 
the first moment. That face, with its latent passion and quiet, 
self-reliant power, could only belong to a girl to whom musio 
was a natural language and not an instinct. He was not sur- 
prised at what he had heard. Here was a girl who, whether be- 
fore an audience of medical students and cabinet-makers, or a 
select company of lords and ladies, would be simply Jeannette 
Daniel, her own beautiful, unembarrassed self. That was 
Gerald’s verdict. 

He saw her throw aside her hat and gloves, kiss Mrs. Hormsby, 
and look into the teapot; then she deliberately took an un- 
touched half of the bird Gerald had left, and breakine: off the 
leg, began to pick it with her teeth; a piece of thin bread- 
and-butter went the same way. She had not seen Gerald yet. 
The little landlady glanced toward him, and he made her an 
emphatic signal for silence; he would not have disturbed Jean- 
nette for the world. 


CHAPTER V. 

AS A NATURAL CONSEQUENCE. 

Limited as Gerald’s experience was of womankind, he saw 
that the young lady who made herself so entirelv at home had a 
distinctive character of her own. It was a pleasant kind of 
treachery to watch her as she sat there quite unconscious of bis 
presence. He had been already prepossessed in her favor by 
what Mrs. Hormsby had told him, and now that he had seen her 
he was interested still more. 

“ Yes, I have two pew pupils,” Miss Daniel said; “ but I begin 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


21 


to find tlie work very tiring:, and, after all, I think I shall take 
the situation in the school at Bristol. There is at least the cer- 
tainty, and if I have less liberty, I shall not have so much walk* 
ing; only I shall be so sorry to lose you and the dear old piano. 
When does your young gentleman come?” 

“ He came this afternoon ?” 

“ Good gracious! And I have been drinking his tea and de- 
vouring his partridge! What would he think of me, and what 
is he like? Surly and sliy, I suppose — most boys are. I detest 
them when they are at an age when they are neither one thing 
nor the other.” 

The expression on Gerald’s face when he heard this was too 
much for the landlady’s gravity, and she fled laughing from the 
room. When she was gone, Miss Daniel found for the first time 
that she was not alone. 

“ You will let me plead for one at least of the obnoxious 
tribe?” Gerald said, approaching. “And if you must detest 
me, I hope it will be for nothing worse than the rather ungen- 
erous advantage I took in staying here without making some 
sign.” 

“ You have the right word for it, Mr. Barry— it was ungener- 
ous.” 

“So I saw when you began to speak of private matters, and 
was meditating a silent escape. Yet I cannot say I am sorry, 
for we have dispensed with the infliction of a formal introduc- 
tion. Pray keep your seat, or take this one nearer the lire. I 
can scarcely be a stranger to you, for I know Mrs. Hormsby's 
penchant for talking about her old friends.” 

Miss Daniel had fought her own battle with the world too 
long to be disconcerted by a trifle. She was inclined to be angry 
at first, but his quiet courtesy disarmed her, and she took the 
chair offered. 

She had expected to see a bright-eyed, somewhat bashful 
schoolboy, with all the gaucherie of youth upon him. The 
landlady’s description had not prepared her for this thoughtful,'' 
self-possessed, deliberate-speaking man. 

“It was my fault for coming in as I did,” she said; “ but I 
am so much at home here that I never think of ceremony, and 
you were not expected till to morrow.” 

“ So I inferred; but being in London on business, I came to 
see if I could have the rooms before making other arrangements, 
and I would rather be here than anywhere; it was my liome as 
long as I can remember. I am glad. Miss Daniel, to think that 
since we left you have lived here.” 

“ What difference could it make to you?” was her straight- 
forward question. His last words seemed so much like a com- 
pliment, a thing she hated. 

“An odd fancy, perhaps; but this is sacred ground to me, 
and I should not like to think my mother’s rooms had been oc- 
cupied by set after set of the rough and careless people who gen- 
erally live in furnished apartments.” 

“ I understand,” she said, softly; “ yes, I understand. You 
were very fond of your mother, Mr. Barry.” 


‘^2 A SiSTER^S SACRIFICE. 

“ She was my only friend, my constant companion; the only 
relative I had to care for, or have to remember.” 

“ But you were very young when you lost her. You must 
have made friends since.” 

“ Do you think we ever make friends after such a loss as that. 
Miss Daniel ?” 

“ I do not think we ought to live too much within ourselves, 
Mr. Barry; if you have a tendency that way, conquer it.” 

“ Why should I, if I find pleasure in that tendency ?” 

“ Because it is a selfish pleasure, under which you would, in 
time, grow morbid. You should face the world with a brighter, 
a more hopeful spirit; but, pardon me, we have not known each 
other half an hour, and I may be going beyond my province.” 

“On the contrary, I thank you for tlie kindly interest shown 
in your advice to one who is almost a stranger.” 

“ If you were quite a stranger, and we met under circum- 
stances that gave me the right to speak, I should give you the 
same advice if T saw the same spirit.” 

“How do you know I have that spirit?” 

“ By your voice, your manner, and your words. At your age 
you ought to have a companion— one of whom you could make 
a brother — to share these rooms with you.” 

“And be always in my way,” smiled Gerald. “No, Miss 
Daniel, I would rather make a friend of you, when, by longer 
acquaintance, I have acquired the right. My tastes and habits 
are not such as would recommend me to men of my own age. 

I have a way of thinking for myself, and acting for myself, 
with very little regard as to the feelings of others.” 

“ And yet, confessing that intense selfishness, you would like 
me to think of you as a friend ?” 

“ I spoke of my own sex only. If I learned to regard a wom- 
an with anything more than the commonplace feeling the ma- 
jority are worth, I should be glad to give way.” 

“Would it be easy to win that regard of you?” 

“ No; it would not.” 

“ And would it be worth having when won ?” 

“I think so, I hope so; but you are laughing at me in your 
sleeve. Miss Daniel.” 

“There you are quite wrong, Mr. Barry; I am perfectly seri- 
ous. I have had to deal with men of all kinds in the course of 
my daily work, and when I meet one who does not belong to the 
ordinary multitude, I am naturally interested. Do not imagine, 
for a moment, that I want to play the part of mentor. If I am 
your senior at all, it can only be by a few months; but I have 
bad to see the world with my own eyes for some years now.” 

“ And I have not seen with my own eyes till to-day,” said 
Gerald, “ and my first look took me to a depth, except in some 
strange story, too terrible to be real.” 

“ The first of its kind you ever heard, perhaps,” Miss Daniel 
said, with her wondeifully intense eyes set upon his face; “ but 
believe me, Mr. Barry, those we think most strange and terri-’ 
ble are only so to us ourselves until we know each other.” 

“Surely,” he said, drawn toward her by some magnetic sym- 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 23 

pathy, “you can have no secret, no sorrow, but for the one 
great loss, like mine.” 

“ Sorrow is good to us all if we will accept its goodness,” was the 
singular reply. “ None of us have more sorrow than we can 
bear, if we try to know how. If we make no secrets of our own, 
Mr. Barry, we can endure those that may be left to us, or come 
to us.” 

“ Must you go ?” he asked, as Miss Daniel rose. 

' “Yes; I w'ant rest, and I may be sent for; if not, I shall be glad 
of a good long night.” 

“You have been very good to stay so long, and I thank you 
for a pleasant ending to a day that began badly. Just a mo- 
ment, Miss Daniel. Our little landlady was telling me that you 
sit and practice here sometimes. I asked her then to tell you 
that the rooms are entirely at your service throughout the day. 
I shall not be at home till evening.” 

“ A. one-sided partnership, Mr. Barry; it would not last. If 
you came in with vour key, and heard me at the piano, you 
w'ould not come up-stairs, and you would wish me anywhere; 
and if you were at home, studying, or thinking, or only wanted 
to be quiet, and I required an hour’s practice, you would make 
me very welcome — and — find a pretext for going out.” 

We shall know each other better soon,” he said, “and then 
you will not think so. I shall always deal frankly with you, 
Miss Daniel.” 

She gave him her hand, with a smile and a pretty gesture that 
accepted his promise. He opened the door for her, thinking as 
he closed it how much her face had gained in beauty. 

He was a better man for that brief interview; her brave and 
hopeful nature had taken away some of the gloom in which he 
chose to wrap himself, and he felt anxious to know what secret 
or trouble could have come to her, feeling sure that it was none 
of her owm. 

“ An odd introduction— an odd conversation,” he thought; 
“ and I think I like her very much. But she knows the world 
too well for one so young.” 

t He saw her very often after this, but it was some time before 
she came into his room again. He met her on the stairs and in 
the street, and she always had a minute to spare for him; there 
was no return, however, to the almost familiar confidence of 
their first interview. She was just the same to every one in the 
house; he had seen her acknowledge, with her quiet grace, a 
respectful bow of recognition from those young men who made 
cabinets and slept over his head up-stairs. Worse than all, he 
was certain that, one evening when he was going out, he heard 
her voice in the dining-room. Gerald would have known Miss 
Daniel’s voice anywhere. 

“ I might have been fool enough to imagine that she took an 
exceptional interest in me,” he said to himself, more savagely 
than there was occasion for, “when, after all, that pleasant 
manner of hers may, like her voice, be part of her stock-in- 
trade. A girl who can play and sing at private parties, wl;ere 
there ar§ from fifty to a hundred present, must he half an 


A SISTEirS CACRIFICE. 


24 

actress; and there is no reason why I should think of her— she is 
simply a fellow-lodger.” 

This did not occur to him so forcibly until after he heard her 
voice in Mr. Alison’s room. He took that as a personal slight, 
and resented it unconsciously; his natural reserve deepened, and 
he went about the house in a state of isolation that had the effect 
of a refrigerator on the rest of the inhabitants. He grew mor- 
bidly fond of books and his own company. Even to the little 
landlady he had very little to say, though he was always kindly 
courteous. 

“ He is not a bit like my Master Gerald,” she told Miss Daniel, 
with a sigh. “ He does nothing but read from the time he comes 
in till he goes to bed. As for a theater or a music hall, I don’t be- 
lieve he ever thinks of such a thing.” 

“ There is nothing at present likely to attract Mr. Barry to a 
theater,” Miss Daniel said, “and I do not think he belongs to 
the peculiar order of young men \vho go to music halls.” 

“ Yet he seems very fond of music.” 

“ Yes,” Miss Daniel asserted, with a smile in her eyes, “ but 
not perhaps of the kind he would get in these places.” 

“ Too simple for him, maybe,” said Mrs. Hormsby, as if she 
had discovered the solution to a riddle that had taxed her mental 
energies; “ and he do play curious tunes on his violin, certainly. 
I must say that I enjoy myself when my Chris takes me to hear 
Mingard, and Jacking, and Alice Gunning — a real, beautiful 
singer she is. Did you ever hear her sing, ‘ Will you tell us is 
that so ?’ and ‘ Give me the man of noble mind, whate’er his 
rank may be ’? ” 

Miss Daniel confessed that up to the present time she had neg- 
lected the opportunity of making herself acquainted with the 
talented lady in question. 

“ Mr. Barry is working very hard, is he not?” she asked. 

“ I think so,” said Mrs. Hormsby. “ He sometimes plays his 
violin for a few minutes — a half an hour at most, and then he is 
at his books. I wonder what he can see in them great, dry 
things, with authors I never heard of, Coke, and Blackstone, 
and Chitty, and such people; enough to drive any one melan- 
choly mad.” 

“ They have helped to drive many people melancholy mad,” 
Miss Daniel observed gravely. “ Mr. Barry is studying for the 
law, Mrs. Hormsby, and that accounts for his careworn look 
lately. He has, you told me, an income of his own.” 

“ So he have,” — the little landlady could never conquer her 
provincialism, though she was constantly with people who spoke 
the English language with a fair knowledge of its grammatical 
construction and a tolerably well-bred accent— “ besides what he 
gets at the office— Mr. Channing’s, in Lincoln’s Inn; that's his 
guardian.” 

“A singular choice for an independent gentleman to make,” 
Miss Daniel reflected, exactly as Mr. Channing had done. 
“ Tliere cannot be much that is really lovable about a man who 
has naturally what may be termed a legal mind,” 


f 


A SISTEWS SACRIFICE. ‘25 

“You don’t have much to say to each other now. Miss 
Daniel ?” 

“No.” 

“ I thought you liked him very well at first ?” 

“ So I did, and do.” 

“ You spoke as if you did at any rate,” Mrs. ITormsby per- 
sisted, “ and now it seems as if things have gone wrong.” 

“ You stupid old dear,” said Jeannette, “ what absurd fancy 
have you taken in your head now ? You remember how I spoke, 
but you have not told me what he said of me, that is if he ever 
mentioned me.” 

“I cannot say that he ha%"e, now you come to think of it, 
but he is not one to talk much, if his words was gold he could 
not be more careful of them.” 

He had not mentioned her! Jeannette was angry with herself 
for the feeling of disappointment that came over her,— that 
pleasant evening had been such a break in her lonely life, — the 
promise of many more to come. Her thoughtful, ingenuous 
boy who had interested her so deeply, was an independent gen- 
tlenien reserved and somewhat cold. He had repented of his 
familiarity to a music-teacher, working for her bread. It was 
nothing. He was only like the rest, yet she would have made a 
friend of him; and she missed the piano. For she would not go 
into the rooms now, whether he was there or not. She removed 
her music to her own little apartment, and packed away the 
bulk of it on the top of a wardrobe cupboard in a recess by the 
window. 

Gerald, noticing that the stand was empt}", filled it with some 
surplus books and magazines of his own. 

He had taken kindly to his work, and won Mr. Channing’s 
high opinion. Gerald had the faculty of setting his brain in 
any given direction, and keeping its strength concentrated there 
till the task undertaken was accomplished. He displayed con- 
siderable tact and judgment from the first; he had a retentive 
memory, too, for technical points given in his instructions, and 
would bring one case to bear upon another in a way that sur- 
prised the Lincoln’s Inn solicitor. 

“One might think you were reading for the law yourself,” 
Mr. Channing said, when Gerald helped him through an intri 
cate bit of detail without referring to an authority; he was gen- 
erally careful to keep his knowledge in the background, but, in 
this instance, he betrayed himself involuntarily. 

“I am,” he replied, quietly. “ It is sound advice that which 
tells us to do, with all our might, whatever we have to do.” 

“Do you think, then, of adopting the profession?” 

“ I may, and if not, a knowledge of the law is always useful; 
at present I take it as a study — a pastime, just as some men 
dabble in chemistry, or ivory carving, painting, or music.” 

“And so, should occasion arise, you could be your own 
lawyer, forgetting the definition of the client in that case.” 

“ The definition is open to an answer, Mr. Channing. A man 
being his own lawyer may have a fool for a client, but the client 


26 A SISTERS SACRIEICE, 

who employs a lawyer is very likely to get the opposite 
treme.” 

“ Scarcely complimentary to the profession you are engaged 
in,” said Mr. Channing, with a smile of vexed amusement. 
“But you are right, Gerald. The profession is deteriorating 
year by year, like that of medicine. Young men, half educated, 
totally ill-bred, taken literally, as it were, from the greatest 
gutters, find their way in, and not unfrequently have their 
names removed from the law list to the books of a jail. And j 
yet you, having, as I know you have, a keen contempt for its 
members as a rule, think of entering.” 

“With the hope, sir, that if ever I do I shall fight my way 
easily througli the rank and file, and stand at last — may I say, 
where you stand now.” 

“ If you)' ambition runs that way, there is no reason why you 
should not. It is not the course I should have recommended; 
still, since you have chosen it, and you certainly work as if you 
found it congenial, there is no harm done. It will, at least, give 
you fixity of purpose.” 

“That,” said Gerald, “ I always had.” 

“Shortly after Christmas,” Mr. Channing -went on, after 
giving Gerald a keen swift glance, as if something in the words 
of the other’s tone did not please him, “ I shall intrust you with 
a commission to a very special client. Lord Farnbourne, of Ash- 
ford Lynn; your tact and judgment will be put to the test then, 
but I do not fear the result. You will spend the Christmas 'with 
me, of course?” 

“ If you wdsh it, sir, but ” 

“You would rather be with your old friend. Dr. Edw-ards; 
natural, perhaps, but you must give way for once to me. Con- 
sider that I insist, and that you have no right from any crotchet 
of your own to refuse a friend. Edwards himself would not 
desire it.” 

•“ It was not of him I was thinking,” said Gerald, “ and I will 
come.” 

“Not of him; there is no engagement I hope, new friends — 
implying a young lady— is there ? Guard against that above all 
things, and never forget that you could do nothing more fatal 
than to marry, as you might do, without my knowledge.” 

“ You speak, sir, as if the consequences would be terrible.” 

“ ^Vell, in this one thing there would be the loss of whatever 
chance you have of regaining your birthright, and learning 
from me the name your father bore.” 

Gerald’s face darkened ominously. 

“ To some men that would be an incentive to act directly in 
your teeth,” he said; “to me, Mr. Channing, it makes no differ- 
ence. I shall never forget what is due to myself, and 1 shall 
find out my father’s name for myself. When you speak of my 
chance of regaining my birthright, you admit my claim and 
your own power to give me what is mine.” 

“ You misconstrue me,” the solicitor said, gently. “ I said 
rnore than was wise, but I wish to put the truth in its strongest 
light, so tliat you may be warned against a possible danger^ I 


27 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 

have no power to deal with what would have been your birth-, 
right had not your father left your mother; and having said so 
much I will say this, — you have but to live well and wisely, tlie 
temperate and honorable life of a Christian gentleman, and all 
you could desire for yourself may be yours.” 

“ Is not that like putting me in leading strings ?” 

“ You require leading strings, my dear Gerald, and the firmest 
hand would be the kindest till you can go alone.” 

Gerald bowed with an irony which showed that his temper 
was rapidly mastering him, but with a sudden gesture he threw 
back his head and held out his hand with a frank smile. 

“ On this subject I would rather never speak again,” he said, 
“ since it makes me forget for a moment gratitude and respect 
alike. When shall I have to see your very special client at 
Ashford Lynn ?” 

Mr. Channing referred to his note-book. 

“ On the 23d of January; remind me of it in case I forget.” 

“Why, that is my birthday,” said Gerald, “so I am not 
likely to forget it. I wonder if I have ever been to Ashford 
Lynn ?” 

Surely you should remember. It is a celebrated place for 
anglers.” 

Qerald shook his head. 

“ I have never fished, except in the Thames, but the name 
seems curiously familiar; and Lord Farnbourne, too; I must have 
heard of him somewhere.” 

“ Very few men of the present generation have not; the eccen- 
tric virtuoso, traveler, woman-hater, and genealogist. Let him 
think you take an interest in that, and have a proper respect 
for it, and he is very likely to put your name down in an odd 
corner of his will.” 

“ Make me the inheritor of his genealogy,” said Gerald, going 
out of the room with a laugh, not seeing the effect of his words 
upon the man he left behind. 

CHAPTER VI. 

WHEN WAS LOVE WISE ? 

As he went down that afternoon Gerald tried to evolve some- 
thing clear and distinct out of what Mr. Channing had said; 
but he could not think calmly until he bad left the streets. 
When he reached home he put his blotting-pad and some thick 
foolscap on the solid table, and sat down, pen in hand, to work 
out a solution of the mystery. 

“ I will treat myself as if I were my own client,” he said, 
“and draw up a brief setting my own case clearly; and so I 
stand thus: — 

“ Gerald Barry, son of a lady who submitted to a separation 
from her husband under the threat of being divorced for infidel- 
ity to her liusband; slie renounces his name, and he refuses 
to acknowledge the child. 

“ Mr. Channing, her solicitor, and presumably her husband's, 
particularly impivsses upon_Gerald that he must not marry with- 


^8 A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE, 

out his knowledge and approval, or the consequences will be loss 
of name and birthright. Mr. Channing disclaims all direct 
power over these, and so is evidently acting under instruc- 
tions. 

“ Now comes the question,” said Gerald, pushing the blotting- 
pad and paper away, “Under whose instructions? Who was 
he when he lived ? What was he when he died? Had he in- 
herited his birthright before his death took place ? The answ^er 
is ‘ No,’ for he died poor. The solution is, that my father’s 
heritage is waiting for me, or will be mine upon the death of 
him who holds it now, if my conduct is sufficiently exemplary. 
So I have the pleasant conviction that I am being watched, and 
that upon my behavior depends an honored name perhaps, and 
more money than I can imagine. I wonder, when Mr. Chan- 
ning told me so much, he did not see that I might be tempted 
to play the part of Joseph Surface. Bahl why should I? Let 
the name be buried with him who dishonored it when he in- 
sulted my mother by his brutal jealousy. And for the money, 
I will earn what I want, when I want more than I have.” 

He tore up the paper he had written on, took his hat and 
overcoat, and strode to the door, not looking before him till he 
felt a sudden shock, and found that he had walked against Miss 
Daniel with a force that would have sent her down the stairs 
headlong, had he not caught her in his arms. 

“Have I hurt you?” he said, anxiously. “I was blundering 
on without looking, and this staircase is so dark until the gas is 
lighted. I have hurt you, I know.” 

He drew her into his room as he saw the pain under the brave 
smile she tried to w’ear. 

“ I do not seem destined to enter into your rooms under very 
romantic circumstances,” she said, when he placed her on his 
easiest chair. “ On the firsl occasion you find me inviting my- 
self to tea, and now you have trodden on my foot so heavily 
that I am afraid I shall not be able to go out.” 

“ If I had not hurt you I should not mind,” he said, “ for I 
could keep you here this evening. Let me take off your boot, 
and rest you foot here on this cushion. Is that better ?” 

“ Much, thanks; and now you must ring for my shoes, and 
then you will have to go a little journey for me, the penalty of 
your clumsiness, Mr. Barry.*” 

“You shall tell me to do anything, and call me what you 
please,” he said, feeling strangely happy, apart from his regret 
for the accident. “Why have you not come before, Miss 
Daniel ?” 

“I was not aware you had asked for me.” 

He colored crimson, and bis eyes fell, as he bowed penitently 
over her hand. 

“ You are right,” he said. “It is the misfortune of the evil 
temper I was born with. You will laugh at me, or be angry, 
when I tell you the reason.” 

“ I will not laugh if the reason is serious to yourself, and I 
will not be angry because— you of all men would never give me 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 29 

reason, I wonder if Mr. Alison is at home. I should like to 
know what you have done to me!” 

“ If 1 have displaced the smallest bone that would necessitate 
his attendance, I would rather I had broken my own neck,” he 
said, with angry energy. “ Here, Mrs. Hormsby, I am glad you 
have come in. Just see wliat I have done to Miss Daniel, will 
you ?” 

Miss Daniel looked at him in grave rebuke when he began, but 
something in his eyes checked her displeasure, and her face 
colored as his had done. The little landlady, interpreting these 
signs after her own fashion, bent discreetly over the injured foot 
and smiled to herself. 

Mr. Barry walked to the window while the process of surgery 
was going bn. The blinds were not down, and he had a full 
view of that cheerless December evening. The flower pots on 
the balcony showed nothing but a few dead twigs, and two 
or three hungry sparrows hopped about in expectation of a few 
stray crumbs. A drizzling, half-frozen sleet was falling, and 
as Mrs. Hormsby informed him — her Chris said it threatened for 
snow. 

“ What a night,” he said, “ for any one but a scavenger to be 
out in. How are you getting on there ? Is the damage irre- 
parable ?” 

“ There’s a bad bruise on the instep, that there be, and it will 
be worse to-morrow; it’s quite swelled already.” 

“ Hush!” said Jeannette, gently, “ you will distress him if he 
thinks I am really hurt. It .does not matter much to-morrow; I 
have only two lessons for the morning, and I can make them up 
next week, and to-morrow being Saturday I shall have two days’ 
clear rest.” 

He heard every word. 

“If I had my way,” bethought, “you should have rest for two 
years or twenty.” 

Mrs. Hormsby, having bathed and bandaged the foot, retired 
after the minute or two of whispering that seems indispensable 
when two of the gentle sex are together, and Miss Daniel called 
him. 

“ I want you to take a note for me to St. Champion Square 
— Honorable Mrs. Randelles’. I was to play there this even- 
ing, and they must know in time so that they can supply my 
place.” 

“ Will not a message do as well ? You will have to disturb 
yourself to write.” 

“ I don’t suppose she would remember my name; I have only 
played there once before.” 

“ She will understand before Heave,” said Gerald, “ and if you 
like I will offer myself as a substitute; I play at sight.” 

“ You, Mr. Barry, you could not endure it for half an 
hour.” 

“Why?” he asked, quickly, “you do.” 

“ Yes, but it is my livelihood, and you, a gentleman, the equal 
of any of them, would find it impossible to stay.” 

“ Then it must be a pleasant livelihood for you,” he said be- 


30 A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 

tween his teeth, “ I should be inclined to call it a deadlihood. 
What is the number, Miss Daniel ?” 

She told him. , , cm 

“ Shall 1 find you here when I come back 
“ Yes, you have made an invalid of me; I will have to bear 
the burden of your sins till I go to bed.” 

“For,” he said in a low tone, “ I have a great deal to say. 

I was going out to get rid of some bad company, some thoughts 
I had of my own, and I wanted my friend; I thought she had 

given me up.” „ , , 

“Perhaps we have both been wrong,” she said, and when 
you come back we will have an explanation.” 

He was not very long. One of the tallest footmen he had 
ever seen, except at the lord mayor’s show, opened the door to 
him and took his message. 

“ You had better wait,” he said. “ There may be an answer. 

“ I do not see how there can be; but I will wait.’ 

In two or three minutes the drawing-room opened, and the 
Honorable Mrs. Eandelles sailed out. Evidently she had ex- 
pected a different sort of messenger, for greeting his sturdy and 
critical gaze, her manner changed. 

“ This is very distressing!” she said at last. “ The — the— young 
person has been engaged by my librarian for a week, quite, and 
we considered her so trustworthy.” 

“ If the servant delivered my message correctly, madam, he 
would have told you that Miss Daniel has had an accident, cer- 
tainly very distressing to her and to me, since I was the cause 
of it.” 

“Oh, dear me! yes, I see; but what is it?” 

“ An injury to the foot. She cannot leave her chair.” 

“ Her foot! oh! but surely if I send my carriage we could lift 
her in, and she could sit at the piano; you see it is almost im- 
possible to procure a substitute at such short notice, unless we 
have some horrid male person, in the neighborhood. Don’t you 
think, now, it might be managed?” 

“ Not for a moment, madam. Miss Daniel is in pain, and I 
would not even return to her with such a suggestion.” 

He bowed, and was gone before the lady had time to recover 
herself. He literally kicked the mud from his feet on the door- 
step, and felt that nothing would give him more delight than 
to have told the Honorable Mrs. Eandelles what he thought of 
her. 

When he went back, glowing with tenderness and indigna- 
tion, Jeannette was fast asleep, quite unconscious that her slen- 
der feet and pretty ankles were left for some few inches uncov- 
ered by her dress. He noticed as she slept how really tired the 
beautiful, calm face looked, and he knew that beloved her, and 
had loved her from their first meeting. 

“You shall never, if I can help it, be at the beck and call of 
those cold-blooded brutes again,” he said to himself. “ In spite 
of Mr, Channing, and whatever I may risk and lose, you shall 
be my wife, my darling, if you will.” 

And he kissed her tenderly, not thinking she would wake. 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 81 

He never forgot the sharp cry of pain that came from her very 
heart. 

“ Mr. Barry,” she said, pushing him away with passionate and 
sorrowful indignation. “You— you— I did think you could be 
trusted.” 

He stood, not knowing what to say or do, quite dismayed and 
helpless, as she sat with her face buried in her hands, sobbing 
bitter tears. 


CHAPTER VTI. 

LOVING TOO WISELY. 

Nothing could have surprised and grieved Gerald more than 
this sudden outbreak of passionate regret. He was quite uncon- 
scious of having given offense, because he was innocent of in- 
tending any. 

If you will tell me what I have done,” he said, much dis- 
tressed, “1 shall know how to ask forgiveness. Surely, Jean- 
nette. you cannot be so angry with me just because I kissed 
you.” 

“ What right had you to take such a foolish liberty? You 
would not have done such a thing to anv one else.” 

“I certainly should not,” he said, gravely; “there is no one 
else I care for enough; but you looked so tired and pretty, and 
my heart was so full of you just then that I could not help it. 
Do not say any more, Jeannette. I hope you will neve r have any 
worse cause for tears.” 

“If I did not like you so well. Mr. Barry, I should not have 
noticed it in that way. I should have left your room and never 
spoken to you again.” 

“ And 1 should have left the house; but I think you are wrong 
to take it so seriously. You cannot think I did it in a spirit of 
levity or disrespect; but, as I told you, my heart was very full 
of you when I came in. I was indignant with that woman in 
the square. I could see what you have to endure in such places, 
and 1 had made up my mind to end it, fori love you, Jeannette, 
and I want you to be my wife.” 

He pushed a hassock to the side of her chair, and seated him- 
self upon it, carefully avoiding her injured foot. He quietly 
took possession of her hand, and looked at her with his honest 
love, in his eyes. He was in no way sorry or abashed; this love 
of his made him very fearless. 

“You do not know what you are asking,” Miss Daniel said, 
recovering her self'i ossession. “I am sorry if 1 have done or 
said anything you might mistake for encouragement. You 
tliink you are in love with me because I happen to live in the 
same house, and that is a very common feeling with young 
people.” 

“Dear me,” he said, with tender irony, “ how wonderfully 
wise we are! We have quite a matronly way of speaking to an 
unsophisticated youth who is only our own age. I think I know, 
Jeannette, what would be the hardest thing in the world for you 
to do,” 


82 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


“ Because you think you know me so well.” 

“ So well that I know you would find nothing so hard as to 
tell a deliberate uni ruth.” 

“One must fall very low indeed for that.” 

“ Well, then, look me in the face, and tell me that you do not 
love me.” 

Miss Daniel tried to speak, but her eyes wavered under his; 
she bent toward him involuntarily, and kneeling on the hassock, 
he took kisses from the proud lips which had turned from him 
sucli a short time since. 

“Jeannette,” he whispered, “my darling, you are not angry 
now ?” 

“ Only very sorry, Gerald.” 

“ That you made me confess my weakness ?” 

“I do not know how long we may remain acquainted with 
each other, but if when we part we never meet again, there is 
no reason that you should not think of me and my love for you, 
though marriage is quite out of the question.” 

“ For a time, you mean.” 

“ Forever, Gerald.” 

“ You want to perplex me with a contradiction, Jeannette; as 
if, having admitted your love, there could be any reason why 
we should not marry when you please. My income is not large, 

I admit, but I have not yet contracted any very extravagant 
habits, and something like five hundred a year is not a bad in- 
come. as money goes.” 

“ It is not your money, Gerald. My fathers business did not 
yield much more, and we kept quite a large establishment. You 
would find me very easy to persuade if I only consulted my own 
inclination.” 

“ Without forgetting that you consult mine at the same time.” 

“ And I must not forget your welfare.” 

“ Could it be in better hands than yours. Jeannette?” 

“You make it very hard for me,” she said, with a sigh, “ but 
you must be content, and for a long time, with what I have 
said. I need not say how glad I should be to change my pres- 
ent precarious existence for the certainty of a home — a home of 
my own, and you, with whom lam sure I could be very happy, 
always with me. But, dearest, it would not be wise; we know 
so little of each other.” 

“What is there that we want to know? We marry each 
other, and it does not matter to me whether your grandmother 
was a duchess or a cook. As for me — well, you must take me 
as I am, for I do not know what my grandfather was. In 
marrying me, Jeannette, the sacrifice would be entirely on your 
side.” 

“ On mine!” she said, with an incredulous smile. “ I am the 
penniless daughter of a bankrupt tradesman, and you would 
make me a gentleman’s wife.” 

“ How do you know I am a gentleman ?” 

“ My engagements take me into contact with so many, and I 
could not mistake the ring of the true metal. A man may be 
well-bred, well educated and perfect in his manner at the din- 


A STSTEM^S SACRIFICE. 83 

tier-table and in the drawing-room, but if the mushroom stem 
is there you will soon find that he wears the oak-leaf badly.” 

“Strange that every woman is an aristocrat at heart,” said 
Gerald. *• I should not have thought that you, with your inde- 
pendent opinions, would have cared whether a man had the 
pedigree of a mushroom or would dig down into the roots of an 
oak tree for it.” 

“ Nor should I, if 1 cared for the man ; but unless I could get 
a true gentleman, I would rather have a mechanic — say, for 
instance, one of the young cabinet-makers who sleep over your 
head.” 

“ Take care,” he laughed, “or there will be bloodshed. If I 
am to have a rival, let him be further away from home. When 
will you marry me, Jeannette?” 

“You must not ask me. Be content.” 

“So I would be if we could go on like this forever, but it 
would not be possible even here. We have as it is, thanks to 
Mrs. Hormsby, more liberty than we should be likely to find 
elsewhere: but you could not always spend your evenings with 
me — and I w^ant you to be my wife.” 

“Wait till you have known me longer, Gerald; there is plenty 
of time. If, after twelve months or so, you are still of the same 
mind, I may say yes, but not before.” 

“Twelve months to find out what we already know, and wait 
when there is not the least occasion; twelve months for you to 
wear those poor tired little feet out, picking up a half-crown 
here and another there. And suppose you were ill! Who would 
take care of you, and how would you live?” 

“ Do you not see, Gerald, that those very arguments show 
rather whai is generous sympathy and compassion than love? 
You are indignant with Mrs. Randelles and sorry for my ac- 
cident. You think it would be much nicer to have me waiting 
for you in these cozy rooms than for me to be out in such 
wretched weather; and so. like a kind-hearted, affectionate boy, 
you would solve the difficulty by marrying me out of hand.” 

“To-morrow if I could,” he said promptly. 

“ And regret it for the remainder of your life! I tell you, 
Gerald, we shall be very excellent friends — the better if from to- 
night you do not mention this again. I am not very much sur- 
prised, but you have spoken before I thought you would.” 

“ Another way of telling me I do not know my own mind,” he 
said, “ but you see I mean to have my own way. We have no 
one but ourselves to please, Jeannette.” 

He saw a change come over her at that. 

“ Do not say any more to-night, Gerald, be content with what 
I have said; and now tell me what took place between you and 
Mrs. Randelles; you saw her!” 

“ Oh, yes, I had the honor of a personal interview in the hall, 
and I should say there is rather more of the mushroom than the 
oak-leaf about her. To rne she seems a supercilious, purse-proud, 
vulgar woman, quite destitute of feeling or good manners. She 
spoke of you as ‘ tKe young person,’ said it was very distressing, 
and volunteered to send a carriage for you, suggesting that as 


84 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


the accident had only affected your foot you could sit and play 
as easily. Is that the kind of treatment you j?(‘nerally get ? ’ 

“ Not with good people. At the best liouses we are made to 
feel quite at home, and treated like tlie guests. Mrs. Randelles, 
I ^should say. fought her way in society. Her husband is a 
thorough gentleman, much younger than she is.” 

“ Poor fellow! I fancy she is used to have a man’s courtesy 
flavored with more humility than I gave her.” 

‘• You did not offend her, I hope. Gerald?” 

“ That depends upon what she may consider an offense. Per- 
haps my manner spoke more plainly tlian my words. She did 
seem astonished rather; but what does it matter to you, Jean- 
nette? You .surely cannot wish to wait upon such a 'woman as 
that?” 

“ However unpleasant she may be, taking her as you saw her, 
there are plenty worse,” Miss Daniel said, “and if she com- 
plained to the agent 1 should lose my connection. You see, it 
is only the very first plavers who are engaged privately; those 
who rank as I do are glad to be on the list of the music pub- 
lishers and take our chance; should she take offense and tell 
them, they will never send for me again.” 

“ So much the better. Nothing could be worse than being at 
the mercy of such people.” 

•‘ You do not know,” Jeannette said gravely. 

Gerald’s bead was resting on her shoulder and her arm had 
fallen rcund his neck. Miss Daniel knew it could not last, but 
the faint happiness of being loved with such free and generous 
affection as this handsome boy gave her, had fallen so rarely to 
her lot. that it was not to be put awav. 

“ You do not know, dear; a girl who has to earn her own liv- 
ing has to do many worse things than I am doing now, unless 
she starves at needlework, or is sensible enough to go into do- 
mestic service.” 

“ You have not been sensible enough for that, it seems,” he 
said, dryly, “yet you would make "a pretty housemaid, and 
you might in time be elevated to the dignitv of waiting at 
table.” 

“Those who are brought up that way are happier than 
girls who live in a false position, and are taught to play and 
sing almost before they have learned to read; a .servant girl is 
certain of a home and her wages, and has altogether better 
treatment than I have, and less real drudgery to go through 
from year to year.” 

“Yet when I ask you to be my wife, you tell me I do not 
know what I am asking, and say I must wait twelve months at 
least.” 

“At the very least; you have scarcely begun the world yet; 
you are a gentleman of independent means, and you are study ing 
as if you meant or wanted to be rich. If I took vou at your 
word, you might before long find yourself fettered ‘to a wife in 
no way suited to you. Keep your liberty, Gerald. Leave me 
my independence, and do not love me less for advising you in 
this way; you will thank me one day,” 


A SISTERS S SACRIFICE. 


35 


Perhaps by this time he was not sorry that she had not taken 
him at his word upon the instant. He had won his way so far, 
and now he had time to reflect before he urged her to take the 
final step. He thought, too, of Mr. Channing’s injunction. 

‘‘I will tell Jeannette everything,” he said to himself. *• She 
is clear-headed, and does not let her heart run away with her. 
She is the kind of girl who is inclined to love rather too wisely 
than too well.” » 

“ Whether I can thank you for it or not,” he said, “you seem 
flettTmined to have your own way. So for the present we will 
lenve it, and I had ni) right to bind you by a promise till I had 
told you more about myself.” 

“ 1 want to know notlung more,” she said, with an earnestness 
that surprised him. “If you have any secrets— keep them. If 
I were your wife I should not expect you to keep a secret from 
me, and I would have none from jou. Whatever may have 
happened up to the time of marriage belongs to ourselves. It 
is better to leave the past behind us. and give the future to each 
other. For. believe me, Gerald,” she added, in a tone as deeply 
passionate as it was imploring, “ those who take the past with 
them into their married life, take a shadow that may darken 
all their love.” 

“Mine is not a secret of my own, Jeannette, and I do not 
want to tell it in return for any you may have, though I should 
be sorry to think you had any you could not tell me; none, at 
least, that would make a diflference to our love, if by any chance 
it came to me afterward.” 

Miss Daniel looked into his eyes and kissed him for a long 
time. Just a slight ring of sternness in his tone sent a thrill of 
fear to her heart. She felt already what a power her love for 
him gave him over her. 

“ You want to play the tyrant early, Gerald. You have a 
jealous nature.” 

“There j’ou are mistaken, dear; but if I were deceived even 
by you. dear as you are to me, I should leave you without a 
word, and never speak to you or in any way recognize you 
again.” 

“ If we were married, do you mean?” 

“ Yes,” was the quiet, emphatic reply. “ I do.” 

“ You think so,” she said, smoothing his fixed, white brow 
caressingly; “ but you do not know what love is yet; not that 
I think a wife who deceives her husband deserves to be for- 
given.” 

“ She deserves nothing except to be set aside and ignored,” 
said Gerald ‘ And, hard as it might be to do, I for one would 
do it. Her actual innocence would be no extenuation of her 
folly, if by her indiscretion she compromised her ^husband’s 
name. I will tell you, Jeannette, why I say so.” 


36 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE, 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TWENTY- THIRD. 

He told her the story of his parents’ separation as he had 
heard it from Mr. Channing. He no longer nestled in her arms 
like an affectionate bov, but stood before her sometimes during 
the recital and sometimes walked about the room. How deeply 
he was moved by what he said, Jeannette could see in his face; 
how little mercy any one who deceived him might expect at 
his hands, she could tell by^ his bitterness when he spoke of the 
father who had wronged him. 

“This is what I wanted to tell you,” he said, when he had 
finished. “ And you told me to keep my secrets, and ” 

“ You are wrong, Gerald. I told you 1 wanted to know 
nothing more about yourself.” 

“ Had I a right to keep this from you?” 

“ No; and now you see that I was wise iu my advice. You 
would have made me your wife and so offended your guardian 
— your mother's friend.” 

“ I thought of that before I spoke to you, Jeannette. I said 
to myself why should I drag that sad old story out again for the 
sake of a nanie my father would not give me ? I gave them at- 
ter long consideration before I resolved to go mv own inde- 
pendent way, and I could only see one reason Mr. Channing can 
have for withholding the truth from me.” 

“ Yes,” she said, listening. “You could only see one reason. 
Could you really see one, or conjecture it ?” 

“You are right, Jeannette, it is the merest conjecture, after 
all, and you will smile when I tell you what it is. I arranged it 
all as if I were drawing up a brief, and the one result I came to 
is that my father, — a spendthrift who died bankrupt. — had or 
probably still would have expectations were he living, for he was 
quite young when he died; and that I, if my conduct pleases, 
may inherit in his stead.” 

“ I see,” Miss Daniel said, thoughtfully; “ and I think you are 
right. You w'ould have been wrong and reckless to the last 
degree had you persuaded me in:o a marriage without telling 
me this.” 

“ Persuaded you, Jeannette! If I could do that, do you think 
I would let any vague, uncertain hopes of the future" stand in 
my way ? You were in my thoughts when I resolved to choose 
for myself. I have money of my own. I am studying for the 
law — one of the professions a man can grow rich in; and I 
should prefer my independence to waiting in fetters for a name 
that was denied me, and whatever else might come with it.” 

“When you are older, Gerald ” 

“ When I am twice as old, Jeannette,” he said, impatiently, 
“ I shall be just the same in disposition. You make me angry 
with that incessant reference to my youth, as if it would last 
forever. William Pitt was prime riiinister at five-and-twenty.” 

“But not at twenty -one; and that four years are more to a 
man than all the rest he ha^ lived. Come back to me, love, and 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


37 


be less impetuous. When you are older you will set more value 
on these things.” 

“ But I have my conduct watched, and know that if I take a 
false step I shall be punished by an invisible judge.” 

“You would chafe under that naturally, and it is that which 
has driven you to make love to me, if only to let them see you 
intentl to set them at defiance.” 

“Jeannette!” 

“If they knew you as well as I do they would not have taken 
such an unwise course; but their motive is kind. Do you not 
see, Gerald, that by w’aiting with patience and obeying Mr. 
Channiug’s request, you may gain the knowledge you want? 
And think of this — if, as I imagine, your father’s relatives are 
in the background, keeping you in sight, intending if they find 
you worthy to give you the name that w^as denied you, and 
w’hatever else may come with it— little as you might value their 
tardy recognition of you, the wdiole stigma would be removed 
from your mother's memory.” 

“Thank you for that,” he said softly; “but it may never 
come, Jeannette, and we are forgetting one thing. Mr. Cban- 
ning's request is, not tliat I shall not marry, but that I shall 
not marry without his knowledge; so I wiirtell him what I am 
going to do.” 

“He would never consent,” she said, quickly. “You must 
not be blind, Gerald. Does not all this mean that when the 
truth comes out it will be found that you are something more 
than you seem now? Would a rich solicitor of his position take 
so much interest in you — even to making room for you in his 
office — if there were not more behind it than he intends to let 
you see? You belong to the aristocracy, Gerald, and to its 
highest order.” 

“ With a right to the oakleaf, would you say ?” he asked, with 
a smile. 

“The oak that you might claim as an ancestral tree had solid 
root centuries ago. This, dearest, is why I ask you to w-ait, as 
I will wait, and if, when you know the truth, you like to come 
to me ” 

“ If,” he said, as though to doubt it was the very heresy of 
love. “Then ” 

“ My darling,” was all she said. ^ ' 

“ You may be right,” he mused, holding her closely in his 
arms; “ but that could make no difference to us, Jeannette, and 
1 am sure that Mr. Channing, if he knew you as I do, w^ould say 
I had chosen well and wisely. I will speak to him.” 

“ Do not, for my sake. I would rather wait, if for twenty 
years, till you are your own master. Why, Mr. Channing would 
think I had done well if I married one of his ordinary clerks. 
He would think me honored if he gave me a seat at his children’s 
table. I know wdiat he would say, Gerald, if you spoke of me 
to him. He would tell you, with a sneer, that you had fallen 
in love with my voice, or my face, because I happened to be in 
the house.” 

“ What if he did ? Of course if you had not been in the house 


38 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE, 

I could not have fallen in love with yon, but people must meet 
somewhere. Fate arranges these things for us. Fate sent me 
here to my old rooms, and fate sent you in, so that I might see 
you as I did, and fate, my Jeannette, will let me have your sweet 
companionship for life.” 

“ If you wait with patience.” 

“ I could not wait with patience, and T will not wait at all,” 
he said almost sternly. “Is it. Jeannette, that you want to 
know exactly who and what lam before you prove that your 
love is anything better than a word spoken to keep me for 
the sake of pleasant companionship till you want to send me 
away?” 

“ Tliat is unkind.” she said, deeply pained, “ I was weak 
enough to think too much about you from the first, and there 
are few things a woman niay do that I would not risk to prove 
bow much I love you cow.” 

“ What if I put you to the test, and ask you to be my wife at 
at once, and tell no one till I know what the secret is Mr. Chan- 
ning keeps from me.” 

The girl wt'nt very pale. This was not the test she expected 
him to suggest. Boy as lie was he had become her master: he 
was terribly in earnest now, and there crept into her heart a 
chilly fear that if she did not take him at bis word he might be 
lost to her entirely. 

“You cannot mean this, Gerald,” she said, in the imploring 
tone be had caught once before. 

“Do I not? I tell you, Jeannette, I mean it from mv soul; if 
you love me as you say, what does it matter to the world ? You 
cannot be more than my wife by the Jaw and the church, 
whether we have two witnesses or twenty.” 

“But Mr. Chancing, if he discovered it ?” 

“Who is to tell him ? We need make no confidants.” 

“Yet it would be deceiving him.” 

“Not in a matter that concerns him; be my wife simply so 
that I may know you are mine.” 

“If I am wrong, Gerald, in giving way, remember that I did 
it out of ray love for you.” 

“ How could you be wrong,” he said, in deep and passionate 
rapture. “ Do you think I could be content to live here and see 
you day by day, and know that you were out in all weather?, 
toiling at your w-retched and precarious genteel drudgery, ex- 
posed to insult and the w’orse than insult some men intend for 
temptation? You shall have no more evenings with those 
purse-proud parvenus and others as bad, even if they are more 
pleasant in their manner. It may be but for a little wdiile, 
Jeannette, that w’e shall have to wear two faces— it shall not be 
very long before I call you mine entirely.” 

“You will think me very easily w’on, Gerald?” 

“ For consenting to be my wife without taking all the w^orld 
into our confidence? The first time, Jeannette, that you ex- 
press a regret on that account I will take you to Mr. Chancing, 
and tell him what you are to me,” 


A SISTFJi^S SACRIFICE. 39 

I wish we could tell little Mrs. Hormsby — she has been so 
kind.” 

“ We might as well make it public at once; not that I should 
mind telling the little woman, but I am certain she would tell 
Mr. ‘ Chris ’ as a tremendous secret, and Mr. ‘ Chris,’ who gets 
into a most communicative and good-tempered state of beer as 
regularly as Saturday night comes round, would inevitably 
tell his shopmate, the young cabinet-maker who sleeps over my 
head.” 

“ But she will think it strange if we both leave here.” 

“ I have no intention of leaving here — we could not be in a 
better place. You may hint to the simple-minded little lady 
that we are engaged, and that w’ill account to her for our being 
together in my rooms. If we left, suspicion would be at work 
immediately, and I should be watched more closely than ever.” 

For a young man not twenty-one, and with all the world 
before him to begin, Mr. Gerald Barry arranged his plans with 
tolerable forethought and skill. 

“I will make arrangements at once,” he said; “ getting mar- 
ried is simple enough. You will be my wife, Jeannette, in less 
than a month.” 

The arrangements were not made, however, so soon as he ex- 
pected; yet they w^ere made in time for him to have the cere- 
mony completed on a day he had reason to remember. 

Jeannette’s injured foot and ankle kept her at home for some 
days, and then reaction, following months of wmrk without rest, 
made it unadvisable for her to go out till she was stronger. 
Christmas came, and Gerald w’ent to spend a few day? with Mr. 
Channing. It was the second of January when he gave formal 
notice of his marriage to the district registrar. 

“You can be married as quietly as you please,” the polite 
clerk said, in answer to a remark Gerald made. “ It is purely a 
legal ceremony, and if you do not care to bring your own wit- 
nesses, I daresay we can manage to find a couple here. You are 
aware, of course, of the penalty attached to making a false 
declaration ?” 

“ I have none to make,” said Gerald. “I am ray own master. 
I have lost both my parents, and I have no legal guardian. The 
young lady is in exactly the same position.” 

“Very well— be here three weeks from to-day. That will be 
the twenty-third.” 

“The twenty- third,” repeated Gerald, as he left the office. 
“What a singular coincidence. The twenty-third is my birth- 
day. my wedding-day, and the day on which I have to see that 
eccentric old peer. Lord Farnbourne, of Ashford Lynn.” 


CHAPTER TX. 

A LITTLE CLOUD. 

From the time he had the registration paper in his pocket, 
Gerald went about with a pleasant sense of responsibility and a 
new dignity upon him. Jeannette belonged to him now almost 
as much as if the registrar had signed the marriage certificate. 


40 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


It was not quite the way in which Gerald cared to take a wife 
unto himselh The registrar’s room, with its severely formal— 
almost legal aspect, suffered by comparison with the tranquil 
solemnity of the church, with its painted windows, the white- 
robed clergyman, and the sacred altar. 

“ If you would prefer it,” he said, when he told Jeanette what 
he had done, “we will go to church instead, but there would, 
be the risk of being seen, not that we — going quietly by our- 
selves — should be likely to attract attention; but there are al- 
ways other weddings on, with bridesmaids, bows, and flowers 
— exhibition weddings for the amusement of the public. I dare- 
say my mother had such an one, and all that was sacred in it 
began and ended with the ceremony. Would you prefer the 
church, Jeanette ?” 

“ No,” said Miss Daniel, with a slight shudder; “ it is not the 
place or the ceremony that makes marriage sacred, Gerald; it is 
ourselves!” 

“ Well, there it is,” he said, giving her the paper. “ Put it 
away, and keep it out of sight. That fixes me irrevocably, 
Jeanette; but you have still the permissive privilege of changing 
your mind. You have not told me yet, Jeanette, how you got 
through your Christmas.” 

“ We had a very quiet, pleasant time, using your rooms as 
you suggested; but I did not stay with the company long, I 
am not so strong as I used to be.” 

“ No; you only took a rest in time,” he said, tenderly, “ and 
that brings me to a matter I want to speak about presently. 
But what was the company like?” 

“Some of Mr. Hoimsby’s friends, good-tempered, respectable 
people — not too refined, as you may imagine, but thoroughly 
appreciative of anything done for their amusement.” 

“And to them, I suppose, we may add the young men shop- 
mates, where my Chris is foreman, as our little friend down- 
stairs would say.” 

“ Now really, Gerald, there never were two more inoffensive 
young fellows, and if we were to judge them by the heart, they 
have a better right to the name of gentleman tlian many to 
whom it is given as a matter of course.” 

“ Doubtless,” he said, a little dryly, “ I do not object to them, 
so much as I should to some others, and at a time like this, your 
kindness to them is reasonable. You must check the famil- 
iarity in future, Jeanette; you see in playing down to their level 
you lower your own taste. I was looking tlirough the music 
you have brought down, and taking that which came to hand 
first I find nothing but a collection of music-hal! songs, topical, 
serio-comical, and sentimental; and in these last the pathos 
should be spelt with a ‘ b.’ Now I have heard you play 
these things, Jeanette, when you were alone, and did not know 
I was at home, up-stairs, and*I have felt very sorry at the singu- 
lar aptitude, the thorough knowledge of that class of music you 
have at your fingers’ ends.” 

“Are you angry with me, Gerald?” 

My dear child,” he already assumed a seniority of ten yeara 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 41 

at least by right of that approaching twenty -third, “ I am not 
angry because I tell you wbat I do not like. That kind of jingle 
is popular, I know; half-a-dozen changes rung on the same 
octave and a half, with a chord to begin and finish with; but I 
will get you some music to remind you that there were such 
men as Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Mozart. The music-hall is 
an abomination, the comic vocalist my especial horror, he 
touches the lowest depths of art; if there is a lower depth it is 
when a woman takes the field with him, apes his manners, 
adopts his slang, and miglit with advantage put on some of his 
clothes. The girl who sells oranges or cigar lights in the street 
is more honest and more worthy of reject.” 

“ That is a very hard thing to say,” Jeanette observed, looking 
at him thoughtfully, “many of them who make their money 
that way are as true as you are honest; you are condemning a 
class of which you know little or nothing. I have known ” 

“Known,” he interrupted; “surely, Jeanette, you can have 
no personal knowledge of these people.” 

“ But I have,” she said, steadily. “ I have taught several of 
them the music of their songs, t am speaking now of three or 
four years ago. Many of them do not know a note of music; 
the songs are written for them in a key to suit their voices, and 
they have to rehearse it till they are as perfect as if they could 
read at sight.” 

“ I hope your transactions with them began and ended there. 
They would not be desirable acquaintances, and when you know 
the female element in a friendly way, the men are easily intro- 
duced. I have seen ‘ life ’ since I have been with Mr. Chan- 
ning, and these men make up a large and leading portion of it 
in certain quarters. They lounge at bars in the Strand, and 
gather in small clusters outside special taverns, and their talk is 
always of themselves and their kind, and to some men they are 
quite little heroes. There is one in our oflSce, who is certainly 
old enough to know better— an articled clerk, and with more 
money than is good for him, who is quite proud of his intimacy 
with them.” 

“Have you met any of them?” 

“ When I have been with him. His name is Robert Courtney 
Lewis: he has appeared once or twice, on benefit occasions, 
as Gentlemdn Courtney, and in the neighborhood where he is 
known, his irreverent companions call him Bob Lewis. He has 
been good enough to promise me an introduction to the chief of 
a great Dramatic, Equestrian, and Music Hall Agency, Mr. Las- 
celles Moss. If it were not for his name, I might mistake him 
for one of the chosen people, if full, red lips, a nose slightly out 
of drawing, hair like polished ebony, and jet-black eyes go for 
anything.” 

“ Have you given your word that you will see this man ?” Miss 
Daniel asked, slowly. 

“Unfortunately, yes. Mr. Lewis assailed me in a weak 
moment when he was with his friends, and I did not like to ‘let 
him down,’ as he would term it, by refusing.” 

“If you did not absolutely promise,” Jeannette said, “ I would 


43 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 


not go if I were you. They are very nice people in their way, 
but, as you say," their talk is always of themselves and their 
kind, and they do not care for strangers. You might think you 
conferred an honor on them by going to their haunts drinking 
witli them, and being what they term good for a guinea on their 
benefit night. Tliey look upon you as an outsider, an intruder, 
sometimes welcome, sometimes quite the reverse; and when you 
are in the way. they can make you feel it painfully,” 

“ You appear to know their idiosyncrasies wonderfully well, 
Jeanette, for a young lady who has "merely taught a few of them 
how to sing their wretched songs.” 

“ Mrs. Hormsby will tell you that she had one of them here, 
with his wife and children— a simple-hearted, hard-working 
couple, who took an honest pride in their profession, and were 
far more worthy of respect than many of the great singers at 
the opera-houses or h?ading people at the w’est end theaters. 
That is why I know* so much about them. They are a distinct 
class, and form a large community— large enough to be independ- 
ent and self-reliant; and if you go amongst them, thinking 
yourself above them, you had "better stay away.” 

This advice was given in her sweetest voice, and with a smileT 
Gerald felt himself taken at a disadvantage. His knowledge of 
these people, whom in his heart he scorned, was gathered from 
the surface; he only saw them when they were idling after their 
own fashion, and even then he did not see them as he would had 
he been an admitted member of their circle. It was rather 
humiliating for him to be told by those pretty lips that they 
would look upon him as an outsider. 

“ I am not likely to go.” he said. “I have no wish to see or 
know them in their habits as they live. I only wish you had 
never known them at all.” 

‘‘ My transactions with them ended nearly or quite four years 
ago, and are never likely to be renewed. As to the music, if 
you object to it, I will put it away, or give it awav.” 

He pressed her hand. The little cloud had passed. 

“We have made too much of such a trifle,” he said; “and 
there is no occasion for you to sacrifice these simple foolish 
things that please the multitude. My opinion is only an opinion. 
Some men speak of Verdi as a musical tinker, others fall at the 
feet of Wagner and worship him. Mv objection to the simple 
foolish things you sing is— that you sing them.” 

“ You shall not have cause to tell me again, dear.” 

“I wonder if you will always give way so easily?” he said, 
kissing her, “ for I do not think it is in your nature — you have 
fought the world too well and too long not to have more self- 
reliant power than you put forth wdth me.” 

“ Yes, I have fought the world,” Miss Daniel said, with a sigh, 
“but it is a fight in which a w^oman can onlv hold her own hy 
a constant strain upon her strength. I am glad, Gerald, to re- 
lax the tension and rely upon you. I do not like you the less 
because you have a strong will, but you are apt t‘o be a little 
hard, even on subjects you do not quite understand. You take 
the world as it should be, not as it is.” 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 


43 


“ And so, Jeannette, I hope you do. We are not to accept 
things as they are when they are wrong, because it is the way 
of the world. I do not care for people who can so wiliinglyfind 
excuses for the sins and faults of others. They are only giving 
away the charity they themselves may require, and would ex- 
pect to be returned.” 

“If we had been married half a dozen years, Gerald, we could 
not be talking more seriously — and do you seethe time, darling? 
Will not Mr. Clianning think you late?” 

“ Thanks for tlie reminder. I had better put in an appear- 
ance, though I do not think T shall be required to-day. 1 feel 
more inclined to stay here than I do to plod through the mire or 
put my feet on the damp straw of an omnibus.” 

“ Take a cab.” 

“ Five hundred a year does not run to cabs,” he said, with 
playful seriousness, “and he who rides when he could walk is 
likely to hobble when he wants to ride. Speaking of money 
matters, my pet, it is now nearly six weeks since you were hurt, 
and during that time you must have been drawing upon your 
slender savings, if you had any. It has occurred to me once or 
twice before to mention this, but I thought you would tell me if 
there was occasion; as you have said nothing, I must, now that 
T have a right, take the matter into my own hands.” 

“I shall want nothing, Gerald; indeed, I shall not, till ” 

“Till,” he laughed, “ you have a right to ask me for it.” 

“ I shall not, indeed, sir,” 

She took a small morocco portraonnaie from her pocket and 
held it out for his inspection. He examined the contents, and 
found that they amounted to three pounds four shillings and 
sixpence. 

“ Poor little purse,” he said, closing it, “ and this is vvhat you 
would have had to begin the world again with, after drawing 
upon your savings for six weeks. Let this keep it company, 
Jeannette.” 

He put a strong and elegant portmonnaie into her hand; she 
could tell by its weight that it was heavily filled. She tried* to 
press it back upon him. - - . . 

You would be very angry, Gerald, if I did not take it?.”r 

“ Very.” 

“ Yet I wish you would leave me the last little bit of independ- 
ence I have left.” , * 

“This is the beginning of your independence, my darling. 
You have nothing to think of, nothing to care for; you are mine 
to keep and cherish, and whatever trouble comes can only reach 
you through me. I shall be glad when the spring comes; we 
must devise some pretext for getting away for a month or so. 
You do not look so well as I should wish. Have you had a good 
doctor ?” 

“I have had none; Mrs. Hormsby has been nurse and doctor 
too. I thought perhaps you would not care for Mr. Alison to 
attend me, and it would have been putting a slight upon him 
had we called in a stranger.” 

Perhaps you are as w*ell as if you had sent for one,” he said, 


44 


A SISTEWS SACRIFICE, 


applying that balm to the reproach which smote him for his ful- 
some dislike of the man with whom he had scarcely exchanged 
twenty words. If poor John Alison had ever been allowed to 
dress that pretty foot and ankle, Gerald felt as if he must have 
hated him with a longing for his life. Woman-like, little Mrs. 
Hormsby was quite as clever in sprains and low fevers as any 
doctor she could have. 

He went out, choosing rather to plod his way through the 
mire, as he expressed it, than to take a seat in an omnibus so 
full already that it seemed to have an atmosphere of its own. 
Stern experience had taught him that Pimlico cabmen are not 
the most pleasant of their kind to deal with, and those who 
touched their hats to him, or followed him at his own pace 
close to the curb with a persistence at once tempting and exas- 
perating, did so in vain. Whoever his spendthrift father may 
have been, he had not cursed his son with a propensity for 
spending his money. At the end of every week Gerald could 
account to himself for every half-crown he had spent. 

Miss Daniel looked very thoughtfully at the registration paper 
when he was gone. There was rather a troubled expression in 
her usually self-composed face, and for some time she held com- 
munion with herself. Then she kissed it, and put it away in her 
bosom. 

“I love himl” she said, softly, “and 1 cannot lose him now. 
I ought to have told him before, but I could never find the cour- 
age. Surely after all I have suffered, a merciful Heaven will 
let me rest safely in the shelter of his love ?” 

The portmonnaie contained four notes for ten pounds each 
and ten sovereigns. The sight of so much money took her back 
with tears to a time when it might have helped to lengthen a 
life that was very dear to her, relieved a worried mind of sad 
anxiety, strengthened a worn-out body with healthy sustenance. 
For not even the kind-hearted little landlady ever knew what 
privation Miss Daniel and her mother endured before the end 
came that left Jeannette parentless. 

Jeannette loved Gerald very deeply; none the less that she 
saw points in his character which might be dangerous rocks 
ahead. She knew already that her husband, young as he was, 
was one with whom there must be no struggle" for mastery. To 
oppose him would be but to bring his unyielding stubborn spirit 
into play, and she resolved, wisel 3 % to keep his love at any cost 
of such small bits of self-sacrifice as help to avert the conse- 
quences of tho&e slight misunderstandings, which, if not healed 
while on the surface, rankle into a wound, and make a sore— an 
irritating reminder of a circumstance which should and might 
have been forgotten. 

There had been many inquiries for Miss Daniel from the par- 
ents of her pupils in the neighborhood. Jeannette was an in- 
valuable teacher. She would not let the pupils waste their 
time or hers. She measured their capacity individually, and 
would not test them beyond if, or try the forcing process for the 
sake of temporary effect. Indulgent mothers wondered how it 
was that their spoiled children were so tractable with one so 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE, 


4 $; 


patient and gentle as Miss Daniel. Thej’^ did not take into con- 
sideration the Unswerving flrmne«s, the will power she set 
in concentrated force Upon the pupil she had in hand for the 
time. 

Miss Daniel did her duty equally by each, but she had her 
favorites. One of them, a girl of six or seven, whose parents 
lived not many streets away, wrote her a pretty little letter ask- 
ing to be allowed to visit her if she herself was not well enough 
to leave the house. 

“ You may say that I am much better, and will come pres- 
ently,” Jeannette said to the servant. “ I am going out this 
afternoon.” 

Near as the time was when she would be Gerald’s wife, Jean- 
nette did not care to take the child into his rooms, and her own 
small bed-chamber was hardly the place to give receptions in. 
She dressed herself in thick, warm clothing, putting on stouter 
boots than most young ladies would have had the moral courage 
to wear, and went down-stairs. - As she reached the hall some, 
one opened the door with a latch-key — it was Mr. Alison. 

Jeannette almost blushed when she saw him. A conscious- 
ness of not having behaved well to him came upon her. Until 
the advent of Gerald Barry, scarcely a day had passed without 
these two having a pleasant chat, if only for five minutes; now. 
when he saw her it was by the merest accident, and she passed 
him with a bow and a few words. 

He closed the door by force of habit, before he thought of what 
he had done. In the act of opening it again to let her pass, he 
paused and advanced toward her with a briglit smile. 

I think I might say that I have a grievance,” he said, with 
grave pleasantry. “How is it. Miss Daniel, that I hear you so 
frequently and see you so seldom ?” 

“ Hear me. Where?” 

“In the drawing room, making sweet music for our young 
friend, my lordly fellow-lodger. Come into the dining-room, 
there is a treacherous east wind going about in search of places 
wheie it can plant sore throats, coughs, asthmas, diphtheria, and 
bronchitis, and such things as drauglds find their way even into 
this solitl old house. Do come in. I want to iook at you.” 

He led her into the room and placed her where the light fell 
upon her. There was no reason why her eyes should droop 
under his gaze, but they did. 

“You are not so well as I expected to find you from Mrs. 
Hormsby^s account,” he said. “ and if you were my patient I 
should certainly forbid you to go out on such a day as this. How 
is it, Miss Daniel, that when you are so ill, when you required 
both a surgeon and a doctor, you did not send for me?” 

“ I did not think it necessary, Mr. Alison. Mrs. Hormsby 
said she could attend to me.” 

“ This IS not like Miss Daniel.” he said, wuth a grave smile 
playing on his lips. “ You know’ I have prescribed for you be- 
fore, and there was a time when you w'ould have sent for me 
at once. If you have given Mr. Barry the right to choose your 
friends ar.d your medical adviser for you, I have no more to say. 


46 A S1STER\S SACRIFICE. 

But as an old friend I will tell you, as if I were your brother, 
that if he has no such right your conduct with him is, to say 
the least, indiscreet.” 


CHAPTER X. 

THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE DRAl^IATIC AGENT’S OFFICE. 

There was no man for whom Miss Daniel had more regard 
than she l.ad for John Alison, and the calm, reproachful warn- 
ing in his tone pained her very much. She saw now irto what 
perplexities her secret engagement might lead her; for here, at 
the very outset, a gentleman whose interest in her was of the 
friendliest nature told her that her conduct with Gerald laid her 
open to the charge of indiscretion. 

“ Is it,” l'>e asked, “ merely such a friendship as used to exist 
between you and me, or is it more T 

"Why do you say such a friendship as used to exist, Mr. Ali- 
son? Surely we are inst the same. And I have to thank you 
very much for your kindness to me while I was ill. You did 
not see me, but I knew from Mrs. tiormsby that you prescribed 
for me as if you had.” 

“ Not quite, or you would not be as you are now. And we are 
going fr(mi the question, Miss Daniel. We are not quite the 
same; there is a difference — a great one — on your side. Your 
way of life has changed; your quiet strength of mind and your 
calm nerve power have left you to a marked extent; and these 
changes have only taken place since Mr. Barry came into the 
house.” 

“ You do not like him, Mr. Alison ?” 

“ My dear Miss Daniel, how can I like or dislike a man with 
whom my intercourse has been strictly limited to the barest in- 
terchange of courtesy ? We ran against each other accidentally 
when we were both armed with towel and soap and rubbers, on 
our way to the bath-room; and he was good enough, in the most 
dignified language, to give the precedence to me, as the oldest 
lodger, and one to whom a fixed time was of more importance 
than it was to him. Since then I have occasionally informed him 
that it was a pleasant evening, and he has said, ‘ Yes. very.’ Now 
and then we have reversed the formula — he has informed me it 
was a very pleasant evening, and I have said, ‘ Yes, very!’ On 
one memorable night, when I had forgotten my key and it was 
very late, he came down and let me in; and naturally as a mat- 
t<‘r of good feliow^ship, T asked him to smoke a pipe and have a 
glass of grog, if it was not too late. He told me. with a sweeter 
smile than I thought belonged to him, and a dignity worthy of 
Lord Chesterfield, that it was too late for him, thanked me with 
incomparable politeness, and went up-stairs again.” 

He laughed at the recollection; so did Jeannette at his uncon- 
scious imitatiou of Gerald’s manner. 

“ Yes, that is what he would do,” she said. “ He is singularly 
reserved, but then he has had a heavy trouble; it has driven 
him back into himself as it were; yet, if you knew him you 
would like him very much.” 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


47 


“ 1 tliouglit so when he spoke that night, stately as he was; 
but he does not seem inclined to give me the opportunity of 
knowing him better; but you must find him interesting. Is lie 
a pleasant companion?” 

“ To me he is— and— I must go now, Mr. Alison.” 

“Just a word, please,” he said, standing aside, but detaining 
her as he took her hand. “ Am I to understand that this Mr. 
Barry is nothing more than a friend — as I am ?” 

Miss Daniel inclined her head, very slowly; it could hardly 
have been taken as an affirmation, except by a man thus willing 
to accept it as one. 

“ Well, then,” he said, with a sigh of relief, “ I may speak.” 

It flashed ujion her in a moment what was coming, and she 
would have stopped him, but there was that in his face w^hich 
forced her to listen against her will. Jeannette was not alto- 
gether taken by surprise. She had seen symptoms of this be- 
fore. There are times when the passion of the soul will tell its 
own story in face and voice and eye, however guarded the man 
may be in words. 

No one was better fltted for the vocation he had chosen than 
John Alison. He was not handsome, if height of figure, breadth 
of shoulders, and classic mold of features are indispensable to 
a woman’s ideal of manly beauty. In all these, Gerald Barry 
had him at a disadvantage; but intellect of a nobler, deeper, 
and gentler, kind had made its home in John Alison's broad, low 
brow and heavy temples. The features were rather long than 
oval, the nose straight, the nostrils somewhat wide, the mouth, 
chin, and face were as perfect as a piece of sculpture; his eyes 
were of the darkest gray; the thick black eyebrows and unusual 
length of eyelashes gave them a <-urious depth; not a handsome 
face taken in its entirety, but wonderfully attractive. 

“If I had not felt myself secure — too secure, perhaps,” he 
said, “ I should have spoken before. We have been going on so 
long in our pleasant, friendl}’ way, with a free, unfettered con- 
fidence between us, that I did not anticipate a change. That a 
change must come some day I knew, but I should have seen its 
first symptoms, and then 1 should have spoken for myself.” 

“ Let me ask you to say no more, Mr. Alison,” Jeannette said, 
pressing his hand in both her own, “ if this is but the prelude to 
what I think is coming.” 

“Nay. hear me out since I have gone so far. The change 
came, and certainly from a most unexpected quarter, I did not 
think when Mr. Barry became our fellow-lodger that he would 
so sweep ns all aside and take you to himself. Here m this 
house vith simple-minded unsuspicious Mrs. Hormshy, who 
looks upon him as a sort of foster son, and treats you as she 
would a daughter of her own, you both have a latitude that in 
any other place would leave you open to severe remarks and 
misconstruciion. Do not be angry if I say that you take full 
advantage of that latitude.” 

“You had letter say no more, Mr. Alison; you do not know,’' 

“ Pardon me if 1 sav it is yon who do not know. What won 11 
you say, to put the truth plainly, if any other young lady in 


48 A SISTEIVS SACRIFICE. 

your situation made herself as much at home in a gentleman 
lodger’s rooms as if they were her own? I could not do more 
than you do even if I shared them with him.” 

“ If I knew the voung ladv as well as I know myself, I should 
say nothing and think nothing. Surely there are men whom a 
girl can trust in friendship as implicitly as she could one of her 
own sex. And I must go now, Mr. Alison; leave what you 
'intended to say unsaid, and spare me the pain of giving you an 
J answer.” 

“ You think I am going to ask you to be my wife,” he said, 
gently detaining the little hands that struggled to get free, 
“and you are right, Miss Daniel. It is for that I have been 
working harder than I should have done. I have talked to you 
so frequently about my profession that you know almost as well 
as I do the difficulties which stand in the way of progress. 
While I was nothing but an assistant with a salary, a liberal 
one, of a hundred and twenty pounds a year, it would have 
been mean and ungenerous on my part to tell you what I fancy 
you must have knpwn some time, that 1 love you ?” 

“You do not know how sorry this has made me,” she said, 
with her soft eyes full of compassion, “ why did you tell me this 
to-day ?” . 

“Why not to-day as well as any other? and I have been in- 
tending to tell you; 1 only waited for an opportunity^ I could 
not send a formal message by the landlady. I could not keep you 
in a state of siege and lie in wait for you in the haVhnven if I 
had time, and it is but recently I had the right to speak. I have 
worked so hard and so well, that Dr. Brookes is certain I shall 
pass and take my full degree, so certain that he has already 
from the beginning of this new year given me a partnership 
share of three hundred and sixty instead of my salary of one 
hundred and twenty. I do not tell you this that it may have 
weight with your answer. T knew it would not. I knew that 
of the two you would have been more likely to cast in your lot 
with mine while 1 was poor, but I know that a poor man has no 
right to a wife: his tribute to the woman he loves should be a 
position that places her at once beyond the reach of care; and 
now, Miss Daniel. I have done. What can you say to me?” 

“ Believe me, Mr. Alison,” she said, earnestly, and still clasp- 
ing his hands, “I would rather have had to answ^er any one in 
the world than you as I have to answer now.” 

“ I see,” he said, slowdy, “ it is not to be. Say no more, Miss 
Daniel. Do not pain yourself by so much as another w’ord. I 
know enough of the w’orld to be aware that w^e cannot ahvays 
hope to win, or that we cannot wun, however strong our hopes 
may be. And I know that when we lose, it is generally that 
which is dearest to us.” 

He pressed her hands warmly and closely, kissed them, and 
let them drop. Jeanrette had always admired him, but never 
so much as she did now. That he was suffering deeply she 
knew, although he suppressed all outw^ard sign for her sake. He 
had not spoken till he thought the time was come. The most 
honorable motives kept him silent. He had . worked for her, 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


49 


won a position for her, worked and waited with the highest pur- 
pose that can fill the soul of an honest man. and when at last 
he laid Lis tribute at her feet she could not take it from him. 

“May. you tell me,” he asked, somewhat wistfully, as ho 
turned toward her again, “ if I must look upon this as final?” 

“Yes, it is final, Mr. Alison.” 

“ Would it be too much if I ask you why?” asked Mr. Alison. 

“ You have the right to know. You have moved my heart 
very strongly, Mr. Alison,” she said, giving way to tears. “ I 
wish to Heaven it had been in my power to spare you this pain, 
but how could I think. The offer you have made would be an 
honor to any woman, no matter what her degree; but it is too 
late for me. I have to ask your pardon for an untruth I told 
you, but I could not tell the truth without placing a secret in 
your keeping.” 

“An untruth, Miss Daniel? You must give me strong proof 
before I can believe that, and pray do not let me see you so 
upset. If you have made another choice, I can only hope that 
you will be as happy as I would have made you. But are you 
really engaged ?” 

“Yes, to Gerald— Mr. Barry.” 

“ I thought so,” he said, “or rather feared it; but I did not 
think you had gone so far. Well, I will not retract my words, 
Miss Daniel, if you think you are safe with him. If you are 
sure that he is one whose first thought will alwdys be for you 
and the second for himself, I would take him by the hand and 
promise him my friendship to the last.” 

“ And he shall be your friend,” said Jeannette, more brave in 
in her promise than certain of her power to fulfill it. “You 
would do him good, and I should like to see you together.” 

Mr. Alison shook his head with a smile. 

“You know very little of Mr. Barry yet,” he said; “less than 
I do, who have only spoken to him once, although you love 
him, and are with him constantly: Mr. Barry will choose his 
own friends, and yours too; but with or without his permission. 
Miss Daniel, 1 shall always be your friend. You may want one, 
no matter how bright the prospect looks at present, and when- 
ever you do, be sure that you come to me.” 

“ I do not see how I ever can.” she said; “but if 1 do, Mr. 
Alison, I will come to you; and you will not mention what I 
have told you to any one, will you? Gerald wishes, and I wish, 
our engagement kept secret — for a time.” 

“ For a time,” he repeated, gravely. “ Yes, I will keep your 
secret, Miss Daniel, though I am more sorry that it is your 
secret than I should be if it were his alone.” 

“You need not be,” she said, “and some day you shall know 
everything, and I shall always be proud of this day, Mr. Alison, 
when you told me you loved me, and thought me worthy to be 
your wife.” 

Jeannette put back her veil and held her face toward him as 
a sister might have done. He pressed his lips to hers and wrung 
her bands again; he led her to the door and let her out into the 


50 


A SISTERS sacrifice: 


street, and when he closed the door upon her John Alison’s woo- 
ing had come to an end. 

“ Well,” he said, as he threw open a huge volume of medical 
treatises and filled his pipe, “some must wait, and some must 
weep, if Shakespeare tells the truth, and he generally does. We 
have no time for weeping, however, wliile the world runs away 
at its present rate, and work is a wholesome sedative. I wonder 
if my lordly young friend knows the value of the girl lio has 
won. He is a splendid fellow to look at. but there is a demon in 
him somewhere. Whether it is pride, temper, or worse, is not 
yet written. I onlv hope he will never let it take her in its 
grip.” 

Something of that demon, whatever it was, had been awakened 
about this same time, and by one of those seeming trifles which 
unhinge or fix the happiness of a lifetime. When Gerald w’ent 
to Lincoln’s Inn he found that Mr. Channing had gone into the 
country, and left no instructions for him. Not sorry to find him- 
self at leisure, he was about to leave when he was hailed from 
the interior by Mr. Robert Courtney Lewis. 

Mr. Lewis looked decidedly the worse for wear, but he was as 
brimful of spirits as ever. Two soda-w’ater bottles— empty — were 
in the waste-paper basket, and a large tumbler with something 
in it, which might have been cold tea. or clear toast water, stood 
on the table. Mr. Lewis had a brief before him, and appeared 
to be studying diligently, making a pencil note every now and 
then. Closer inspection revealed to Gerald a tissue copy of the 
“ Tipster s Monthly Manual,” neatly pinned to the brief, and by 
its side was a small note-book filled with hieroglyphics which 
might have been intended for short-hand, or Arabic, or anything 
not decipherable by the uninitiated. 

“The very fellow,” he said, kicking the basket over and de- 
taching the tissue as he sprang up; “ I know there is nothing for 
you to-day, so we will go and see old Moss— it is one of his best 
afternoons.” 

“ But,” Gerald began. 

“ But me no butts,’ as Hamlet said to the ghost — or goat — I 
forget which. A hansom will take us there in ten minutes, and 
you need not stay longer than you like. You will see half the 
pretty women in London there to day,” he added, sotto voce. “I 
will introduce you as the son of a great American manager, 
sent over to organize a troupe for burlesque. You will come 
away with a hatful of photo’s, and be called a darling more 
times than you would be if you were a stage-struck peer.^’ 

Flattering as the inducements were, they were not of the kind 
Gerald delighted in, and he was exceedingly reluctant to go, 
but Mr. Lewis was not to be denied: in less than half an hour 
Gerald found himself in some street between the Strand and 
Covent Garden, and five minutes later saw him in the presence 
of the great Mr. Lascelles Moss. 

The man’s appearance was certainly impressive. He was 
broad-chested, well-built, and tall, wore a seal-skin coat and 
some ,spleiadi<i diamonds. He rose with quite a well-bred air 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 51 

when Gerald was introduced, and held out a small, plump, soft 
hand. 

“ We. have nodded once or twice and drank together,” said he, 
with a smile that showed his brilliant teeth, ‘- and I am glad 
we have the pleasure of knowing each other by name at last. 
Let me ad'^ise you to look after your friend Courtney, Mr. 
Barry; he is a sultry member, sir, a sultry member; he would 
make it warm for his friends, even if he had them at the North 
Pole.” 

“ I have found him rather a desultory member,” Gerald said, 
seeing that very small change in the way of humor passed as 
current coin here. 

“Good — good! One for you, Bob. You know* where to find 
a bottle of fizz. Never ndnd me. Mr. Barry. I have to write 
some letters. I have made more promises to the little darlings 
than I see my way to keep, but I shall find them a shop some- 
where. Ain use yourself. Mr. Barry. Open that left-hand 
di’awer, it is full of cards; the choice ones, some dead, some 
gone, and some.” said Mr. Moss, piously, as he sent a spiral 
staircase of smoke curling up to the ceiling, “still in the land 
of the living; but there’s one or two m that dravyer I should 
like to get hold of again.” 

He must have been a good man of business, for he went on 
writing while Gerald turned oy'^er pack after pack of cards, as 
Mr. Moss called his photographs, and Robert Conrtnej^ Lewis 
drew the cork from a champagne bottle. Gerald scarcely no- 
ticed what was going on till he found a glass of wine sparkling 
at his elbow. He had never seen, at once, such a sight as he 
had before him now. 

There were portraits by hundreds, taken in every variety of 
style and every kind of costume the inventive genius of an art- 
ist could design. He ran them through as if they were really 
playing cards instead of portraits, till he stopped suddenly as if 
paralyzed. He held in his hand a single picture, the figure of a 
girl. He had never seen anything more perfectly beautiful; she 
was dressed as Cupid, but there was a sad expression about the 
mouth which did not seena in harmony wdth the character of 
the playful god. 

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed, “what a singular resem- 
blance!” 

“Ah,” said Mr. Moss, looking up, “you have got the little 
Delaney, I wish I could get hold of her now, I would give her 
ten pounds a week for three years, and chance finding a shop 
for her. Did you ever see such a figure for a girl of sixteen? 
What w’ould she be now? what is she? But I don’t know 
w’hether she is in the land of the living or not. Did you ever 
see any one like her?” 

“ I think so.” 

“ Then I wish you would send her along if there is anything 
in her. Little Jenny was a clipper, sing anything — dance any- 
thing — do anything, poor gii’l! Tf Mr. de Mortiraar hadn’t gone 
to the dogs or the — never mind, there is nothing I should like 
better Hian the pleasure of- smashing him, but- they- tell -me: 


52 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE, 


he died of delirium tremens two years ago, and — well, I won’t 
say I am glad of that, but I am glad there's an end of him.” 

Gerald heard, but said nothing; he could only look at the 
picture. Here before him was the face of Jeannette Daniel, 
lineament for lineament — the eyes, the brow, the sad mouth 
that, as he had seen it sometimes, grew sad without apparent 
cause. He could almost have sworn to the little feet, and 
the more be looked the stronger grew the terrible conviction 
that Jenny Delaney as he saw her now, and Jeannette Daniel 
whom he had left at home in the morning, were one and the 
samel 


CHAPTER XI. 

THINKING OF A TEST. 

The agent worked at his letters till the last one was finished, 
while Mr. Lewis looked over the EYa, and Gerald studied the 
photograph before him in deep perplexity. The resemblance, 
that was so striking at first, became less so under his continued 
scrutiny, yet it was sufiiciently close to pain and trouble him. 

“ Now I can give you a few minutes,” said Mr. Moss, as he 
threw aside his pen. “ My clientele will begin to come in pres- 
ently, but we need not disturb ourselves.” He thought clientele 
a good word, and so he used it, though he did not know exactly 
what it meant. “ Have you fallen in love with that picture, 
Mr. Barry?” 

“ To such an extent that I should like to take it away with 
me.” 

“ Ah,” said the agent, “that is a rule I never break; they can 
give away as many as they please, but I never part with one. 
It is an ugly thing for a girl to have her portrait shown about 
by some young fool who has only seen her behind the footlights. 
I have known fellows to buy them at shops, and imitate the 
girl's signature, as if she herself had sent it, with a lot of dashed 
lying nonsense added to it. Some outsiders used to come here 
and pocket them on the sly by wholesale. I stopped the game, 
though; I never show them now, except to a man I know to be 
a gentleman.” 

“I respect your motive, Mr. Moss, but I have a strong reason 
for requiring a copy of this. Do you know where I should be 
likely to get one?” 

“ Hardly. Not above two dozen copies were done, just for 
the principal managers. She would not have them sold in' pub' 
lie as advertisements, as some people who ought to know better 
do. Of course it is perfectly legitimate for an actress— some 
people sound the ‘ g ’ hard when they speak of the legitimate in 
that sense~but how ladies of rank, and not a few of title, 
can make a show of themselves at a shilling a head, neck and 
arms included, is a sort of thing no fellow can understand.” 

“ Almost as difficult to comprehend,” said Gerald, “ as how a 
young girl whose face is as fair and pensive as the one I have 
here can appear in such a dress as this.” 

“It is the same thing, my dear sir; the one word for it is 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


53 


vanity, and, in the case of Jenny Delaney, the most innocent 
sort of vanity. But they are all alike. When a woman has a 
pretty foot, and can afford to boot it properly, she will make 
you see it; and so she would if her husband were as jealous and 
as savage as the Grand Turk, and she ran the risk of having 
her neck broken!” 

“ Your experience of womankind is a large one,” said Gerald, 
“ and that is the conclusion you come to !” 

“ Yes, ray boy,” and Mr. Lascelles Moss sent up another spiral 
staircase with such accuracy that a thin walking-stick might 
have been passed through it; “ as we all do sooner or later, and 
the sooner the better. No woman is naturally a nun, Mr. Barry. 
If you want her to lead that kind of life you must put her to it 
before she has crossed the threshold of the world, or you must 
wait till she is tired of the world, which is generally some con- 
siderable time after the world is tired of her.” 

“Are you married, Mr. Moss?” 

The agent looked at him with a curiously amused smile, then 
his face changed. 

“ Yes,” he said, gravely and rather sternly, “ T am married, 
Mr. Barry. Had any one else asked me the question I should 
have resented it very pi'omptly, and after a fashion of my own; 
but I can see the kind of fellow you are, and I am more inclined 
to be sorry for you tlian angry at what you say. though I must 
tell you candidly you have not a pleasant way of saying it ” 

“I am sure, Moss,” Courtney interposed, nervously,- “my 
friend is too much of a gentleman to give offense, and ” , . 

Shut up,” observed Mr. Moss, with the utmost good temper; 
“ your friend is quite able to take care of himself. I know he 
is a gentleman, as much and rather more so than most men are at 
his age. We require ten years’ experience before we get rid of 
those little odd fancies we are apt to think peculiarly our own, 
till we find that every one has been bitten by them before. When 
I was one-and-twenty I should have liked a woman made on 
purpose for me— an angel without wings for preference. When 
I was thirty I was quite content with, and glad to get, an hon- 
est creature who. from the time I took her to cliurch, I knew 
would hold to her share of the contract, and stick to me, and 
any man who is not content with the same is — well, not so wise 
as he might be.” 

Gerald felt the well-meant rebuke, but it made him feel dis- 
satisfied with himself; his self-esteem — his dignity was wounded; 
he w^as humiliated, too. This man, a stranger to him, guessed 
his age at a glance, and took a thorough grasp of his character 
from the few words he had spoken, and the tone in w’hich he had 
uttered them. 

“ If ever you fall in love.” Mr. Barry, the agent went on, “ don’t 
expect too much for your money. Women are very much alike 
everywhere; they can always be as good as they care to be; 
they are just the same, according to their individual nature, 
whether you take them from the workroom, the public-house 
bar, the show-window of a milliner’s -shop,-t he music-hall or 


54 


A SISTEB^S SACRIFICE, 


theater staj^e — from the back row of the ballet to the stars *-7- 
or tiie best of West-end society.” 

“ But surely you would uot say that a woman who makes her 
living by singing and dancing before the public, in suc!i a dress 
as this, \vouid make a good and tinistworthy wife for a gentle- 
man ? 

“ That’s just where you make a mistake; there is nothing they 
like better than a quiet home and a man to look after them — not, 
the idle vagabonds they generally manage to get, I am sorry to 
say; brutes who, in nine cases out of ten, take their monev and 
spend it elsewhere. Now, for instance, that little girl Delaney 
— jmu seem to take an interest in her portrait, so I will tell you 
her story. 

“ There is nothing I should like better than to hear it.” 

Then fill up and fire away. Bring out another bottle, Court- 
ney. I dare say there will be some more where that came from. 
Now look here, sir— wliatever you may think, I would answer 
for little Jenny Delaney as I would for my own daughter; and 
if I knew where she was, and she wanted a friend, she would 
find one in old Tony Moss, as they call me.” 

The man was an odd mixture of vulgarity, self- assertion,. and 
good nature, and his opinions in regard to women set Gerald’s 
teeth on edge; yet he could not help liking Mr, Moss, who went 
on easily, unconscious that the young gentleman before him 
was studying him much as a naturalist does his first specimen 
of a rose hitherto unknown. 

“ Only sixteen, sir, when she first came to me. A first-class 
lady pro. had tried her in some private rehearsals for the senti- 
mental line, but I knew there was uot much good in that. I saw 
the girl had character in her, and a figure that might be a fort- 
une to her. So I advised them to give her some step dancing, 
and she took to it like a bird. By degrees we got her into cos- 
tume; she was rather shy at first, as careful of showing her feet 
as a seedy swell is of taking off his only coat when his last 
waistcoat has gone up, and his linen is represented by a paper 
collar and a dickey; but there, my boy, once on the boards she 
soon took to it. as they all do. She was only one amongst the 
rest, and she was laughed at and chaffed until she would play 
any character and wear any dress; and, after all, there’s nothing 
in it when you are used to it. 

“You smile,” he went on, and Gerald could not plead inno- 
cent of the charge; “ but as a gentleman, accustomed. I should 
say. to high society, you must know that where a fancy dress 
ball is given, — such as they have at Brighton, and in a great 
many houses where there is room enough.— the difficulty is to 
keep the ladies within the instructions that the masters of the 
ceremonies have been obliged to make, or the scene would be 
more like a bal-masque at Vauxhall or Creniorne, than a fash- 
ionable gathering in the Pavilion or a gentleman’s mansion. 
And so in their private theatrical s Nothing is so popular as an 
extravaganza, with plenty of f irirs and pages. VVe should 
call it burlesque, but t’ue <-tber i r ore elegant 10 the ear. The 
Stage-manager has no trouble i fi i mg uis fairies and pages, 


A SISTERS 8 SACRIFICE. 


56 


the prince, courtiers, and soon; the difficulty begins witli the 
long skirc parts. I have been stage- manager at some >1' them — 
and I know.” 

“So much, then, for the modesty of ladies in high society.” 

“Oh. be hanged! You have a lot to learn yet, my boy, I can 
see. Good wholesome modesty — the genuine — is not a question 
of dress. If a change of fashion made a lady appear at dinner, 
or at a ball, or in the stalls of a theater in a style a little more 
decollete — that’s what they call it — than we are used to, the man 
who looked at her twice, or thought the worse of her. would be 
voted an ill-bred cad, and serve him right The most artful lit- 
tle demon I ever knew looked like a saint, and dressed like a 
Quakeress. She would not toucli anything stronger than lemon- 
ade or weak wine-and-water, and considered waltzing higldy 
improper. We are not always what we look like. Mr. Barry.” 

•• Gentle instructor of unsoVhisticated youth,” said Mr. Court- 
ney. “ kindly return to our starting point— Jenny Delaney.” 

“I had better, if I am to get through it at ail, and I couhi not 
have a finer case in point— tliere vvas a girl, not much more than 
a child — thrown, sometimes I think purposely, into the way of 
temptation, and yet not a purer or more modest little creature 
ever walked the earth. She vvas so good. Mr. Barry, that when 
she found out what her husband was, she would not live with 
him.” 

“ Her husband ?” 

“ Yes; he called himself Hector de Mortimar, and always swore 
it was his right name. He was so particular, too, about the 
‘ mar.’ with an ‘a,’ not vvith an ‘ o.’ or an ‘ e.’ ‘ De Mortimar, 

if you please,’ he would say; ‘ there are plenty of “ mer’s ’ and 
“ mors,” very good fellows in their way, no doubt; but be good 
enought to understand that I do not belong to them.’” 

“ He must have been a consummate ” 

“ My dear fellow, don’t take the trouble to go on. He was 
the most consummate everything you can imagine, and then 
you might invent some more; but he was a genius, and the 
finest-looking fellow I have seen on or off the boards anywhere. 
He was good on the trapeze— then he was Hector, the Flying 
Arabian; he could do character singing to the life— from White- 
chapel to Bond Street, and as a first-class Shakespearian actor, 
few could touch him, and he was as shameless a scoundrel as 
ever escaped kicking or shooting. He went to the States, and 
we have not heard from him, so I should not be surprised if be 
began playing his old tricks, and was shot out of hand.” 

“ How did such a man come to win a fine young girl like Miss 
Delaney ?” 

“ Because he was the most fascinating vagabond that Satan 
ever invented and let loose; wffien you looked at him you saw a 
perfect gentleman, there was no mistake about it. I do not 
think he cared for her more than he did for any of a dozen 
others, but she was young and bright, and he thought he saw’- a 
fortune in her. So there was if he had worked it properly; she 
would have been worth twenty pounds a week by this time, 
but he disgusted her, he dropped the mask before they had been 


59 


A SISTEIVS SACRIFICE, 


married a month, — he lived in Stamford Street then, had the 
best rooms in the I'.ouse. and p:ave a champagne supper two or 
three times a week,— be tried to make her drink, and if she 
hadn’t held out like a little tiger he would have compelled her 
to be friends Avith some lady pro.’s that even I by far would 
rather lift my hat to than shake hands with.” 

“ A shameless scoundrel, os you say.” 

Eight from the crown of his hat to the heel of his boot. 
Sentiment and I said good-bye a long time ago. Mr. Barry, but I 
pitied that poor little thing when she found him out; lier friends 
had gone into the provinces, and of course as she was married 
they could not take her with them, and as she had no one to 
conie to but me, I could understand the disappointment she 
felt when she saw the kind of man he really was; in less than 
six months she had not a bit of love left for him, and he knew 
it, then he ill-used her.” 

“ How?” 

“ Not by knocking her about, you may be sure of that; but 
he would" pinch her cruelly just under the shoulder. Where 
he picked up this infernal trick I can’t imagine. We never 
knew it till he got an engagement and was going to take her 
to the States, and then she came to me and my wife one Sun- 
day morning. My lord had gone to Richmond on the spree, and 
she told us exactly the life she led. And she told us she would 
not go with him. If she could not hide away she would drown 
herself first, quite quietly, and I knew she meant it. My wife 
wanted me to break every bone in his body — I saw a better 
game. 

“ ‘Just you wait lill within three or four days of the time for 
starting,’ I said to little Jenny, ‘ and then come here without a 
word to anybody. He shall never know where you are; and he 
will not lose such an engagement as this trying to find you out,’ 
—it was for fifteen hundred dollars a month.” 

“ That seems an enormous income,” said Gerald, “ for such 
people to make.” 

“ It is good money, my boy, and they don’t all get it, even 
when they are the best of ‘ such people,’ and it would be an 
enormous income, if it were an income, which it isn’t. In dry 
figures fifteen hundred dollars are equal to three hundred pounds 
English; and if you lived in the rame style there as you would 
here, your three hundred a month would bring you in the way 
of reut and food, lights, coal, wine, and Avearing apparel as 
neply as possible wliat you Avould get for one hundred. Still, 
it is good money, but not an income; it is simply money earned 
from month to month, and, as a rule, not a pound of it is ever 
saved. Men who earn such money at the risk of their necks or 
by wearing the brains out, g(» on as if they had twenty necks to 
break or twenty brains to replace the one they are exhausting. 
They never think that to the public and the men who pay the 
dollars they are nothing more than human oranges; when the 
inside is dry the outside is pitched away. There is no market 
for the peel that I have heard of, and oranges of the human 
kind are as plentiful as the others,” 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 


57 


“ A hard truth, Mr. Moss, but I do not think you would or 
could act upon it.” 

“ My dear boy, as far as a stray pound will go, T am good, but 
no man can do more, unless he wants to get mixed up with the 
peel, I knew Mr. de Mortimar — kindly be careful of the mar/ 
— would go for the dollars, in fact, he draws a month in ad- 
vance; so, when the time came, I kept him out for a night or 
two, primed him by degrees, and fed him so that he would take 
it till he was like a somnambulist. We put him to bed on the day 
before the ship left dock, and when he was sober enough we 
gave him the letter Jenny had left for him. By Jupiter, man, 
you ought to have seen him then; he did the finest bit of acting 
you would think of — only it was real. She had given a little 
history of what their life had been, and what sh^e thought it 
would be. It was a beautiful letter, and it nearly drove him 
mad.” 

“And she was at your house?” 

“ That was the beauty of it. There she was snug and safe 
enough, and T was sympathizing with him. * You are not,* said 
I, ‘ the kind of man to cry over a bit of a child like that, artful 
enough to give you the slip just at the right time. Depend upon 
it. Hector, old man, she has had this little game on hand more 
than a day or two.’ He swore again at that. Not ‘ that 
he cared for her,’ he said, but how could he go without her. 
However, he went, and that is the last 1 saw of Mr. de Morti- 
mar. Be sure you are careful of the ‘ mar.’ ” 

“But,” said Gerald, thoughtfully, “ what would they say on 
the other side when they saw he had not taken the genuine Miss 
Delaney ?” 

“ The girl he took was nearly as clever and sufficiently like 
her to pass. There is a lot done in the making up, you know, 
and the girl he took out had gone on for Jenny more than once 
when she was ill. Only the regular frequenters of the place 
knew the difference, and a few words on the quiet satisfied them. 
When this girl, Lillian Statham she called herself, wore the 
same dress and golden wig, sang the same songs and dreamed the 
same dreams, she was really wonderfully like Jenny; in fact she 
might almost have stood for the very photograph you have fallen 
in love with.” 

Gerald heard that with a sigh of intense relief, but he was not 
satisfied yet. He had not forgotten Jeannette’s defense of the 
people who followed this particular branch of the theatrical pro- 
fession, and there were many points in the agent’s remarks that 
reminded him of some she had made. 

“ When the fellow had gone,” he said, “did she return to her 
engagement here ?” 

“No; and that is where I am puzzled,”— he was going to say 
“licked,” but recollected himself in time.— “I could not induce 
her to return. She wrote to her friends, the Desmond family, as 
they were known, — their private name is nobody’s business,— 
and I though she was going to them; so did they; but she never 
went, and I have not seen her since. Fill up and fire away, gen- 
tlemen, I shall have to leave you now, but you need not hurry. 


68 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


Poor little Jenny, here’s to her pretty face, and may she be doing 
well wherever s-he is.” 

“ You have interested me very much,” said Gerald, “ and I am 
glad lo have met you, Mr. Moss. Will you be disengaged for an 
evening shortly 

“ Not for a month, my boy, except for the day after to-mor- 

lOW.” 

Then give me the evening of that day. Mine are bachelor 
quarters, but 1 can promise you a decent little dinner and some 
music. Say you will come.” ... 

Now the good-natured agent rarely had an invitation of this 
bind from what he would have termed a casual intro luction, 
and Gerald went up twenty per rent, at least in his estimation. 
He closed with the invitation at cnce. 

“Count upon me as there,” he said, heartily; if there is any- 
thing I like especially, it is a little dinner given by a man who 
knows h(»w to put one on the table. I would rather have a cut- 
let and a bit of cheese otherwise. How many will there be?” 

“ Just ourselves, and. of course, any one you wish to bring.” 

“Well, not this time; you and I and Courtney know each 
other well enough to get along pleasantly. You ouglit to know 
a man well before you give him a knife and fork. Come into 
the next room, if only for a few minutes, and see tlie levee; you 
will find the gills pretty enough for any kind of mischief, but 
they won't bite you.” 


CHAPTER XII. 

JEANNETTE’S ORDEAL. 

Nearly an hour instead of a few minutes elapsed before Ger- 
ald and his friend left what Mr. Lascelles IMoss called his levee; 
true he pronounced it levy, from perhaps some occult associa- 
tion which would intrude at times, but he sat in his Russian 
leather gilt-studded chair and received with quite a princely 
air. 

This portion of the day was for ladies only; he had found it 
expedient to make that rule, and adhered to it inexorably. 

“ When I let them in mixed,” he said in explanation, “ it took 
me all day to get through the business, and nothing was done 
but lardy-dardy spooning, so I had to cut it; now they know ray 
time — gentlemen between eleven and one; the next hour is mine, 
and you have had it. with much pleasure to me; now till four 
the girls have an innings, and a little after six, I take the ’bus 
for Higbgate.” 

“The ’bus I suppose represented by a mail phaeton and a good 
pair of bays.” 

“ Not for me, thank you,” said the agent, fervently; “ I keep 
a brougham for home" use, and I have had it to" bring me 
here when I felt particularly shaky; the outside of a ’bus is 
my tip, and if ^ I am obliged to have a cab, I know exactly 
what the fare is. Some of the gentry who come here will give 
a cabman half-a-crown for a shilling distance and treat him 
to a cigar or a glass as well; as a rule they want a quid from 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


69 


old Moss when Thursday arrives, and if old Moss didn’t happen 
to be in the liumor they would have to go into training on 
biscuits and ci.eese, or else inquire the time without referring 
to the waistcoat pocket — they want my experience, Mr. Barry 
—and so they get mixed up with the peel. By jove, sir, some 
of them are nothing but peel, only they happen to escape the 
squeeze.’* 

Mr. Moss delivered himself of this, partly in one room, partly 
in the doorway between the two, and the rest where the levee 
was held. Contrary to most levees, the majority of the visitors 
were there first, and he had to make his way to the throne 
through quite a lane of sealskin, velv-t. gules, and fur of every 
description, and there was much more free and easy affection 
than respect in their treatment of his majestic highness; in 
fact, when he took his seat, one plump little lady, with a face 
as bright and as innocent as a happy boy’s, perched herself on 
the arm and rubbe<l his carefully bruslied hair vigorously from 
his temples, adding greatly toiiisgood looks but sadly detract- 
ing from his dignity. 

Here as before, Mr. Courtney Lewis, who seemed at home 
with every one. officiated as chief butler, and corks were freely 
drawn. Wlien he had filled for the ladies he drew Gerald aside 
and said to him, in a whisper of terrible solemnity — 

‘•I ought to have told you before, but — don't take more than 
a glass whatever you do. Any kind of a fizz does fora woman, 
and this w’ould do for us, though not in that sense.” 

‘•There is no doubt of it, 3-es,” said Gerald, as if he had re- 
ceived a communication of gi’eat importance. “ It would be as 
well to send a telegram as soon as we get to the Strand.” 

“ You should have thought of her before you came in,” said a 
lady by his side, with her beautiful eyes fixed steadily upon him 
in the gravest regi*et. “And you, so young too, and so heart- 
less. Now, when you first came in. I thought I could have loved 
you for the sake of one— ah. one I knew long years ago, longer 
than them,” and she put her fingers up a few inches higher than 
her head on either side. “ Ah, well, aye de mi, it never will be 
otherwise!” 

This w as a kind of banter to which Gerald was quite unac- 
customed. He saw every face around him brimming with mis- 
chief. They could see at once that he w as embarrassed. He 
blushe«l as only a youth can blush, and did not know whether to 
laugh or be angry. 

“ Did you ever see such a beautiful color?” said his tormentor, 
patting his face caressingly, ’‘and he would be such a pretty 
boy, too, if he didn’t frown. There, kiss and be good, and we 
won’t ^ease you any more.” 

Gerald had never felt so thoroughly ashamed and vexed with 
himself as he was for the temporary loss of his presence of mind. 
He was hot with confusion, w’hile the girl pretended to make 
violent love to him, reproached him for his inconstancy, and 
vowed that if she found out her rival she would have what she 
termed a horrible revenge. 

“ That telegram explains all,” she said, in tragic tones. “ If 


60 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE, 


these tears will not melt you — kindly imagine these tears — I will 
kill myself at your cruel feet, and you shall not see me again for 
a month.” 

In the laughter that followed Gerald joined with all his 
might, and in his quiet way entered into the spirit of the com- 
pany. As soon as they saw he could hold his own, they left him 
aloiie. 

“ You must not mind these little monkeys, Barry,” Mr. Moss 
observed, from the other end of the long room. He spoke to 
his clients, one by one, in a low tone, and their business trans- 
actions did not seem to take tl»em more than a few minutes. 
Occasionally he drew a check, but more frequently the rustle of 
a bank-note or the clink of gold told that he was their banker 

f >ro tern. Very much pro and not always tem., as he had said 
or a thousand times or so. It was his favorite joue, and he 
always brought it forward with the pleasant pride a man feels 
in a faithful old friend. “ You need not mind them, my boy. 
If they knew as much as I do, they would find that the danger 
is all the other way.” 

“ You are right,” said Gerald’s tormentor, with sudden 
thoughtfulness. “ One of our oldest and truest sayings is that 
a boy’s blush burns many a heart. You ought to have your 
friend marked dangerous, Courtney, unless you intend to an- 
swer for his sins.” 

“I do,” said Mr. Courtney, placidly, “having none of my 
ow’n.” 

“ Now he wants us to imagine he is desperately wicked,” ob- 
served the lady, w'ho had made a set on Gerald from the first, 
“ while a schoolboy might put all the sins Courtney is capable 
of under his cap. As for this one,” and she gave Gerald a 
piercing glance, “ if faces go for anything, and he lives long 
enough, he will have more to account for than you could put 
together in a century.” 

“ Thanks,” said Gerald, gravely: “ is that a prophecy, or will 
you cross my hand with silver, and continue in the orthodox 
manner?” 

“ Never mind. Smile if you like, but I would not marry a 
man with those eyes of yours if you could buy me the freehold 
of a theater. Therel And if we ever meet again, just remem- 
ber what I said.” 

“ I will, but may I say I do not feel flattered ?” 

“ Some men w’ould,” said this uncompromising young lady, 
as she scribbled her name on the back of a carte which she 
took from her bag. “ There; you may keep that. I don't want 
yours. You would not give me one if I did, but I should know 
you again anywhere. Good-bye; it is my turn now.” 

He wondered what she meant till he saw the agent beckon to 
her. Nothing interfered with that gentleman’s methodical way 
of business. Gerald made a signal to his friend, and they i-e- 
tired. 

“ Curious girl that who made a dead pitch for you,” Mr. 
Lewis remarked. “ Ella St, Greyl It’s wonderful who invents 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 


61 


the names for them. What did you think of the morning eren- 
erally?” 

“ I should not care to repeat the experience,” said Gerald, 
rather gloomily. “ They are a terrible sk, these women.” 

“ You may think so, but you are wrong, Barry. You see the 
worst of them on the surface. They are as full of mischief and 
as harmless as kittens. You like Moss ?” 

3,“ Yes, very much.” 

“ “ I.am glad you asked him to take that little dinner with 
you, old fellow. I am obliged to take so many, good, bad, and in- 
different, that when I am able to take a gentleman, it reflects 
credit on me; and lie did take to you wonderfully, otherwise 
he would not have taken the trouble to tell you that" story about 
Jenny Delaney. Were you interested, or was it your polite- 
ness 

I was really interested, Lewis, and I should have liked to 
hear more — had there been more to tell.” 

“ If there is you will hear it when he comes. Where shall we 
go now ? The day is not half over.” 

“ But I am not used to such a morning, Lewis, and I am 
going home. I may come out later. You can call for me if 
you like.” 

“ What is it, old fellow? You do look pale. Headache?” 

“ Badly.” 

“ That’s curious too. The champagne we had was all right; 
it couldn’t have been the solitary glass you drank with the girls 
— cruel stuff that — twenty-five shillings a dozen. Ughi but it’s 
all the same to them. What time shall t look you up?” 

“ As soon as you like after seven,” said Gerald, and he held 
up his stick for a passing hansom. “ And now,” he muttered 
to himself, as be entered the vehicle and closed tl»e doors, “ let 
us see how Jeannette will come through tlie ordeal I must make 
her undergo before I take her to be married, or treat the regis- 
trar’s form as so much waste paper.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 

OUT OF THE CRUCIBLE. 

Jeannette had gone out when Gerald went home. The little 
landlady could not tell him where, and rather wondered at the 
gloomy brow with which he took her information. 

“ My Chris wouldn’t look like that if I had gone out,” she said 
to herself, “ and we’ve been married years. I don’t seem able 
to make it out somehow, and Miss Jeannetto. never says a word 
to me; yet there is something going on. I am sure of that, and 
I don’t dare say a word to my Chris, or he would give him a bit 
of his mind.” 

This had been the intention of “ my Chris ” for some time, 
for, without being able to say what it was he did not like, he 
did not feel satisfied with Gerald’s conduct. The best caution 
of love is no better than that of an ostrich when it hides its head 
and thinks itself entirely invisible, Mr, John Alison was not 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


ea 

the only one in the house who had begun to think that Mr. 
Barry and Miss Daniel were something more to each other than 
fellow lodgers. 

It was as well that the landlord did not carry out his intention 
on this occasion, for Gerald was in no mood to be spoktm to. 
He was discontented with himself and angry with Jeannette 
for being absent; he w ished lie had not pone with his volatile 
friend to tiie agent’s office, and tliought with contempt of the 
people he had seen there; and if Jeannetto had been one of 
them, no matter for how short a time, there w'as an end of 
everything between him and her. 

“ it would have been better, perhaps, if w’e had never met.” 
he thought. “ And if I had been in my own position I sliould 
not liave been thrown in her way lierer This is the penalty I 
pay for the wrong my parents jiut upon me.” 

He stopped as he caught sight of his own face in the glass, 
and felt ashamed of Iris ungenerous temper, but the cloud upon 
him w’ould not clear away, even w hen Jeannette came in. He 
had left tlie door partly open on purpose that sue might enter, 
and he w^as not disappointed. 

“Mrs. Hormsbv told me you w^ere at home and looked very 
cross about sometl.ing,’* she said, “ but I w as sure you w^ere 
only tired. Where have you been, dear?” 

“"With Mr. Lewis, who seems to be a sort of general utility 
man in society, for he knows every one, apparently. Will you 
sit down, Jeannette ? I am going out again soon.” 

“This evening?” 

“Yes. Are you disappointed? I do not remember that we 
had made any arrangements.” - 

“ No, but ” 

The girl paused. His tone was stern, abrupt, almost scornful, 
w'ith some strange irritability under it. and he w^as strangely 
pale. He had kissed her very coldly, too, rather in fact letting 
her kiss him. She could not understand the change that had 
taken place since the morning. 

“ How strange you are.” slie said, with the docility of her love. 
“ I have not done anything to make you angry. Something has 
vexed you out of doors.” 

“ Nothing much.” and he folded her in his arms. For good or 
id be loved this girl when she was wdth him. and he knew w’hat 
a heavy heart also he would have if the^ were parted. “ I w’as 
stupid enough to give my ow n inclination for the pleasure of 
another, and the result was some bad champagne and worse 
company. I am not used to daylight dissipation, and, as you 
see. I am so much the worse for it.” 

“That Mr. Lewis of yours cannot be a nice person, Gerald. I 
w’ish you would not go with him.” 

“ I am not likely to go again; but he is as nice as most per- 
sons, Jeannette, and he took me into w’bat was a new world for 
me.” 

Miss Daniel unfastened her jacket and took a seat. 

Gerald watched her with gloomy admiration — with the im^ 


A SISTEIVS SACRIFICE. 63 

E ression that Jenny Delaney must have been singularly like 
er. 

“ I went with Lewis,” he went on, “ and had the honor of a 
formal introduction to Mr. Moss, a great man in his way, and 
not at all a bad fellow when you get used to him. They are 
curious people he deals with; quite, as you say, a community 
of their own, and one into which no outsider would care to 
enter. Sufficiently amusing, if it is their aim and end to be 
amusing; but if I had not felt so much pity for them, I am 
afraid n\y sentiment would have been contempt, if not disgust.” 

“ I wonder you went to such a place, Gerald. I am sure these 
people would be quite out of your way.” 

“They were. 1 saw nothing in them to admire or attract, and 
I wonder what manner of men the fools can be who follow them. 
Their gayety is a levity as hollow as it is unwomanly. Their 
voices are artiticial, — their language without sense or education, 
and they are powdered, rouged, and painted from throat to 
forehead. They are — but why say what they are, since they are 
nothing but the creatures of the atmosphere they breathe, and 
they make the atmosphere.” 

“ You should not have gone,” Jeannette said, quietly, “ as you 
had already prejudged the poor things. And you need not let 
it make you angry now. You need not go again.” 

“ I am angry with myself for giving them a second thought,” 
he said: “ but I was annoyed, Jeannette, because of a circum- 
stance that happened while I was there. I saw a number of 
photographs, — some hundreds I might say, — and amongst them 
was one singularly like you.” 

“ Yes,” she said, lifting her eyes, with the softest accent of 
inquiry. “Yet I have been told that there are not many girls 
like me in the world.” 

“ For my own part I should say there is no one, unless you had 
a sister; but this photograph absolutely startled me, the resem- 
blance was so striking.” 

“ Did Mr. — what is his name — Moss, tell you for whom it was 
taken ?” 

“ Yes; she called herself Jenny Delaney. I saw her in the 
costume of Cupid — if by any stretch of the imagination that 
name could be applied to what she wore. Did you ever hear of 
siich a person— or know her ?” 

“ I have heard of her, and I knew her,” said Jeannette, slowly. 
She was looking into the fire, and spoke as if the answer in- 
volved a retrospection of some years. “Yes, I knew her very 
well, Gerald.” 

“ Do you know what became of her?” 

“Jenny Delaucy died some years ago, and I do not think any 
one was more glad than she to leave the wretched life she had 
been compelled to lead, I remember that we were thought alike 
then, but not as I am now. She was very young.” 

“ Very little moro than sixteen, according to Mr. Moss. How 
many years is it since she died ?” 

I liave been told it was soon after she left the stage,” 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 


«4 


But beinj? in some sort a friend of hers, you surely would 
have known.” 

“No; I had given up all connection with people of that kind 
before Jenny Delaney died, and we never wrote to each other. 
Much as I liked her, I was not sorry to leave her and all that 
belonged to her out of my life and memory.” 

He weighed each word carefully as she spoke it, and there 
was nothing in tone or manner to suggest that she had not 
spoken the pure truth; yet he was not satisfied, but he could not 
put his doubt in more direct fashion unless it took the shape of 
an accusation. 

“I was naturally interested,” he said, “in one whose resem- 
blance to you was so singular, and I was interested still more 
when this agent, who is really a good-hearted man, told me lier 
history. He was good enough to take a fancy to me,” Gerald 
added, with a smile, “and, with no better credential than the 
introduction Lewis gave me, adopted your theory that I am a 
gentleman. The story he told me of that poor girl was a sad 
one, Jeannette, so sad that to die was the most merciful thing 
which could have come to her.” 

Miss Daniel shrunk from the unexpected words as if they had 
wounded her. 

“ Why ?” she asked. 

“ What man, unless he were too low in the social scale to 
make it worth consideration, could give his name to a girl who 
had appeared before the public as she did, or dream of love for 
love, however pure her instincts may have been, after she had 
been polluted soul and body by the drunken, foul- ton gued 
mountebank she married.” 

“ All men would not think as you do, Gerald.” 

“ Let every man think for himself, my darling. For myself I 
should be content with nothing less than first love, and if I were 
not sure I had yours 1 would rather see you dead than marry 
you.’" 

“Shall I say that you have mine, Gerald? for I can, with all 
my heart and soul; yet if you have a doubt — and you seem so 
unlike your own self this morning.” 

“ Put it down to my vexation that any one with such an un 
happy story as this poor girl’s should venture to be like you. I 
had a morbid fancy engendered by bad wine and company to 
match. But I know you would never be less than truthful^ no 
matter what the cost might be to you — or me.” 

He knelt by her side with graceful penitence, and while his 
head rested on her shoulder he did not see the momentary 
agony in her face; it told of an inward struggle — a wild desire 
to throw herself upon his mercy, tell him all, and trust to his 
love. 

“If you only knew,” she said, with a sudden and passionate 
clutch that nearly stifled him in the soft warm fur of her 
jacket. 

“ Knew what, dear?” 

“ How much I love you!” 

“ If you show it in that way you will either break my neck oi 


A SfSTERS SACRIFWE. 


65 


smother me one of these days. I am sorry I went to that place 
to-day, Jeannette, not for what we have been talking about, but 
the fellow was so friendly and hospitable that I asked him to 
dinner here, and promised him some music afterward.'* 

“ This Mr. Lascelles Moss?” 

“ Yes, and Robert Courtney Lewis, Esq. Will you mind com- 
ing down for half an hour?” 

“ If you wish it I will come, but is it quite the thing for me 
to play for strangers who do not know what we are to each 
other ?” 

“ As for him, he is one of those who take things as they come, 
and does not trouble himself about the why or wherefore; and 
Moss is too much of a gentleman in his wav to misconstrue a 
lady’s position. He will take it for granted that I would not 
ask you to do anything that I would not ask of my own sister. 
Still, my darling, if you feel the slightest reluctance ” 

“ I have not, dear; it only occurred to me at the moment. I 
ought to have trusted to your judgment. When is he— I should 
say when are they — coming?” 

“ The day after to-morrow. I shall have the dinner sent in 
by Ruthven, just here in Chorlwood or Gloucester Street— I 
never know one street from the other; but he is quite as good as 
Gunter, and I do not think his charges are so high. We must 
not give the little woman too much trouble. I wish we had a 
fourth,” he added, reflectively; “for I dare say they would like 
a hand at whist.” 

“ Why not ask Mr. Alison ? I am sure you would like him.” 

“ Thanks. But if instinct goes for anything, I am certain I 
should not. There is an assumption of calm superiority about 
the fellow that annoys me, and I have an inward conviction 
that he is in love with you.” 

“Gerald!” 

“ I know, my pet; but it does not matter if you are not in 
love with him. Still, when you have an idea that so near a 
neighbor has a longing eye for your sweetheart or your wife, it 
is as well to keep the distance of the staircase between them; 
and these doctors understand a woman’s mind almost as well as 
they do the human body. Let them once impress her with the 
idea that they care for her, and they can work upon her sym- 
pathy and her compassion till they are rather more dangerous 
as friends than medical advisers. I am very young, Jeannette, 
as you and others are good enough to remind me, but 1 should 
not choose my intimates from tliose who, by the fancied right 
of their profession — a right women far too readily admit— leap 
at once into a w^oman’s confldence, and know more of her secret 
life in a day, or even an hour, than her husband does if they live 
to grow old together.” 

“Do you not think,” said Jeannette, gently, “that you are 
likely to make yourself very unhappy by taking such a serious 
view of human nature ?” 

“ Do I?” he said, bitterly. “ Have you forgotten what I told 
you of my own mother, and she, to my mind, was pure as an 
angel. I should as soon have believed her guilty of an indis- 


ee A ‘sisTEirs sacrifice, 

cretion as of crime, and in the few months — I am older since I 
knew the truth— I see how nearly the one trenches on the other. 
But there, let us forget it; it is by no fault of mine that ray boy- 
hood has been the curse of my manhood. No matter what I 
may be, I know that I shall never be what I should have been. ’ 
Miss Daniel met him as he strode across the floor with a step 
which made the rooms vibrate, solid as they were. He kissed 
her in answer to her wistful, steadfast gaze, but she knew that 
not even his love for her would always have power to tranquilize 
the unquiet spirit which came to him when he thought of her 
whose memory should have been so sacred to him. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

MR. LEWIS SUSPECTS SOMETHING. 

The day had been a trying one for Gerald, and that which he 
had pleaded as an excuse for getting rid of Mr. Robert Court- 
ney Lewis became a reality before the evening was fairly begun. 
He was unused, as he said, to daylight dissipation, and his head 
ached very badly indeed. He looked upon Mr. Lewis as his 
evil genius for the time, and made up Ins mind not to go out 
with him again, for the present at least. 

After his last outburst, when he spoke so bitterly, he threw 
himself upon a couch, and let his head drop wearily. Miss Dan- 
iel took off her hat and jacket — she was more forgetful of ap- 
pearances than Gerald; to see him in pain, or tired, was enough 
to make her forget them altogether. She placed a cliair near 
him. and put her cool, quiet hand on his temples. 

“ Shall I stay with you,” she asked, “ or would you rather be 
alone ?” 

“ Stay, please, if you can bear with me. I am not myself to- 
day, Jeannette. I wish I could clear the past away as easily as 
I used to put a sponge across my slate at school, when I {made 
a mistake in my arithmetic. I wish, Jeannette, you were my 
wife, and that we could always be together, as we are now, 
with no one to think of or consider but ourselves.” 

“ 1 shall be your wife soon, dear; and if you want me always 
with you, there are many ways in which it may be arranged; 
but I do think your plan is the best. Let me ring for some tea.” 

“Thanks; I can touch the bell from here.” 

Nine times out of ten Mrs. Hormsby answered the drawing- 
room bell herself; ninety-nine times out of a hundred she 
might have come into the room, and never seen them together 
as they were now; but on this occasion the servant came. Jean- 
nette forgot her self-possession, and would have sprung away, 
but Gerald held her down. 

“Tea, please, Sarah,” he said, with lazy indifference. 

“ For you, sir ?” 

“ And Miss Daniel. And Miss Daniel will have dinner with 
me,” he added, seeing that the girl was full of mystery and 
wonder. “And Sarah ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 


A SlSrm'S SACRIFICF. 6? 

‘4 expect a gentleman to call this evening about seven ” 

“ Yew, sir.” 

The girl was gone before he had time to finish; she was in 
such a hurry to get down-stairs and enlighten lier mistress as 
to the “goings on” in the drawing-room. 

“ I was about to tell her to say I was not at home,” said Ger- 
ald; “ but I suppose she was so shocked that she could not stay 
any longer. Now, my pet, you see what it is to think there is 
such a thing as secrecy. The young gentlemen up-stairs will 
hear of this before the night is out, so will Mr. Alison, whose 
moral superiority will elevate itself a little higher at my ex- 
pense, and Mr. Horinsby will feel a British workman’s indigna- 
tion at our audacity. We shall have to tell the truth, Jean- 
nette.” 

“When the time comes, not before,” the girl said, quietly. 
“ But 1 am sorry the servant came. They talk and they exag- 
gerate. Now Mrs. Hormsby understands us, though I have not 
said a word to her.” 

Miss Daniel was right in saying that servants talk. They do, 
and this one was no exception to the rule. She was as full of 
mystery and wonder as ever when she reached the kitchen and 
told her mistress Mr. Barry wanted tea for two. 

“What, has he got company at this time of day?” asked Mr. 
Hormsby, noticing the emphasis on the two. He himself had 
run down the area for a surreptitious cup of tea while on his 
way to do a commission for his master. 

“ Only Miss Daniel, sir; and I should think he is used to her 
by the way they are sitting. I am only a poor servant girl, and 
it is not for me to say, but I know whac people would think of 
me if I was sitting by a gentleman’s side with ray arm round 
his neck, and the other hand on his forehead.” 

“ I don’t suppose you would mind, Sarah, if it was one of the 
young men up-stairs,” said the little landlady, rather angrily, 
“and you are not kept here to make remarks. If you have 
nothing else to do, you had better mend your evening dress and 
darn your stockings; I am sure they are not fit to be seen, and 
to cut the feet off instead of mending them is shameful waste, 
besides being slovenly. You need not wait. Just attend to the 
door. J will take the tea up, Sarah. And please to bear in 
mind what I have said to you. You know me w ell by this time, 
and that I don’t generally wush to speak twice.” 

“ Wasn’t that rather warm, little woman?” said Mr. Hormsby, 
drinking his tea apologetically, for the fire in his pretty wife’s 
black eyes warned him he had better not take any view of the 
case that did not suit her. 

“ Oh, don’t tell me, Chris, don’t; I have no patience with a 
parcel of girls making remarks about things they know nothing 
about. She wouldn’t have taken such a liberty if you hadn’t 
been here, but of course she is young and w^hat you men call 
good-looking; I should call her hair red, and her eyes are more 
green than blue, but men are such fools they marry any 
wrench.” 

There was never a more unfounded charge implied, and the 


68 


A SISTEWS SACRIFICE. 


little woman knew it, but her tactics totally put to flight what- 
ever intention he may have had of expressing his own opinions; 
he submitted to the injustice in silence, as a dutiful husband 
should, when he values his domestic comforts generally. 

“ Still,” he said, when he was safely sheltered by his hat and 
overcoat, and had his hand on the latcli of the kitchen door, 
“ when you come to tliink of it, you know, little woman, there’s 
no one but you and me to look after her.” 

“Nonsense, Chris; haven't we known him from a child ?” 

“ That’s all very w^ell; but he ain’t a child now.” 

“ There, go about your business do; you shall not come in any 
more out of meal times; as for that girl ” 

He did not stay to hear what was going to happen to that 
girl. He left his wife to “ simmer down,” as he would have ex- 
pressed it. Nevertheless he determined to see Mr. Barry at the 
earliest opportunity and give him a “ word of a sort,” should he 
not be satisfied with that young gentleman’s explanation. 

“It is no good saying anything now while the missus is out 
of temper,” he said to himself as he trudged along; “ but when 
I set it before her in the right light she will see as I do. As to 
liaving known him from a child, that’s all very well in its way, 
but don’t one’s own children turn out as bad as they can some- 
times? and Mr. Gerald knows as much as many men ten years 
older. The thing is I mean to look after the girl — and I will!” 

And with this resolution, simple, honest Chris continued his 
way to the nightly haunt where he was wont to smoke many 
more pipes, and imbibe of the flowing bowl much more freely 
than was good either for his health or pocket. 

Mrs. Hormsby felt vexed when he had gone that she had snub* 
bed her Chris as she did, merely for giving expression to 
thoughts which in her heart she shared. Certainly Mr. Barry’s 
behavior was not right, there was no excuse for it, and as for 
Miss Daniel 

Well, it was wrong, foolish, indiscreet, no doubt, but the little 
landlady could not believe that it was anything more. She had 
too much confidence in Jeannette to mistrust her, and would 
have staked her life upon Gerald’s honor. Still, though no 
doubt there was no harm meant, the whole circumstance was 
of such a nature as to cause the worthy little woman much 
perturbation of spirit, and she made up her mind to take the 
first opportunity of speaking seriously to them both; but not 
to-night, it would be better to sleep on [it, and speak to them 
separately. Together they would derive strength from each 
other, and perhaps be less inclined to heed her remonstrances. 
Yes, decidedly it would be better to attack them singlv, she 
resolved. 

So when she went up-stairs with the tea, and found the pec- 
cant pair sitting demurely at each side of the fireplace, although 
she was perfectly aware that such propriety of attitude was but 
very recently assumed, Mrs. Hormsby had*^ sufiicient command 
over herself to abstain from any remark, though, from a certain 
air of severe condemnation which sat but awkwardly upon her, 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE, 69 

Gerald was convinced that Sarah had communicated to her 
mistress what she had seen. 

“ And we're in for a lecture, depend upon it,” he observed, 
laughingly, to Jeannette, when they were alone; “ but I fancy 
both 3 ’ou and I are able to contemplate even so dire a contingency 
without much apprehension of any ill result.” 

Jeannette, however, did not reply in the same strain. 

“ It is very unfortunate,” she said, thoughtfully; but there 
is no help for it now, I suppose.” 

“No, and therefore don’t brood over such a trifling matter, 
dearest. After all, it is only a little while longer that any con- 
cealment is necessary.” 

So they sipped their tea together, and afterward partook, in 
company, of the dinner which Mrs. Hormsby had prepared for 
Gerald, and served with her own hands. The meal was scarcely 
finished before a thundering rat-tat at the street door announced 
the arrival of a visitor, and Gerald suddenly remembered that 
he had not, after all, fulfilled his purpose of giving instructions 
that Mr. Lewis should be told that he had gone out. There was 
no chance of rectifying the mistake now, for even as Mrs. 
Hormsby left the room at sound of the loud summons, the hall- 
door was heard to open and close again, and the voice of Robert 
Courtney Lewis came up the staircase. 

“ It's all right, my dear,” said that affable young gentleman. 
“ Mr. Barry expects me. I am here by appointment, so you 
need not take up my name, if you will show’ me the way to his 
rooms.” 

“ Is he to come up, sir?” whispered Mrs. Hormsby. 

“ Oh, yes; there’s no help for it now,” peevishly replied Gerald. 
“I wish the fellow was a hundred miles away, though,” and 
then, as the little landlady disappeared, he added to Jeannette, 
“ You won’t want to meet him, I daresay. Good-night, darling; 
I shall not see you till the morning.” 

He snatched a hurried kiss, and Jeannette flew to the door, 
but not in time to escape a meeting with Mr. Lewis, who had 
already reached the landing, and stood aside to let her pass, 
keeping his eyes upon her as she went with so fixed and curious 
a gaze that Gerald felt inclined to do him some personal violence, 
and though he curbed his temper sufficiently not to give way to 
the impulse, he could not restrain the displeasure in his voice ;>s 
he said; 

“ Perhaps when you have quite satisfied your curiosity, Mr. 
Lew’is, you will come in. I don't fancy it is quite the custom 
in civilized society for gentlemen to stand staring after ladies 
whom they can never have seen before.” 

Lewis started, and replied w’ith an air of frankness, which was 
not at all badly assumed: 

A thousand pardons, my dear fellow. I think I must have 
gone off in a day dream!” 

Gerald only bowed stiffly at this quasi apology, and led the 
way into the room. 


70 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


CHAPTER XV. 

OLD FRIENDS. 

After this little episode was over, Gerald was cordiality itself: 
his reception of an invited guest was of a nature that he felt re- 
quired atoning for, yet there was a dignity in his manner which 
implied that the atonement was rather due to himself than bis 
friend, and Lewis could not help feeling that his strange young 
host contrived to place an immeasurable distance between them. 

“ If it were not for the governor I should not take such pains 
to cultivate your society,” Mr. Lewis said, mentally; “but I 
must accept "your kingly patronage, which is funny in its way, 
till I am relieved from duty. I think our little friend was right 
to-day when she told you that you would never be guilty of lit- 
tle sins, but you would do something once for which you would 
be sorry all your life. I like you, my boy, but I am hanged if I 
can make you out.” 

There was something else he could not make out. He had 
recognized Miss Daniel as the Jenny Delaney whose sudden dis- 
appearance from the music-hall stage was a matter of much 
speculation and regret, and he could not understand how it was 
that she was here on such intimate terms with Gerald. Mr. 
Lewis was as good-hearted as he was careless, and never will- 
fully said a word that might injure any one; but his curiosity 
was touched, and he wanted to be satisfied. 

“You say that I have never seen that lady before,” he said, 
when an hour had gone pleasantly over some excellent cigars 
and a well-filled spirit case. “ Now, my dear boy, I never con- 
tradict a gentleman if I can help it, but" I think you are wrong. 
I am almost certain we have seen her before.” 

Gerald looked annoyed, and his suspicion returned; yet he 
thought Jeannette would surely never have told him an un- 
truth. 

“Tell me where you think you have seen her,” he said, 
“ though it is easily explained. She lives in this house, and is a 
great deal about the neighborhood; her name is Daniel, and she 
is visiting governess and teacher of music.” 

“That’s where I have it, then,” Mr. Lewis observed, thought- 
fully. “ What a donkey I must be. Of course, if I had seen 
her in walking costume, and with her portfolio, I should have 
known her in a moment. Yes, I have often noticed her. You 
need not frown, Barry. I am not such a scamp that I cannot 
admire a quiet ladylike girl with respect.” 

“ You have never met her personally,— to be introduced, that 
is to say.” 

“ My dear fellow, I do not take lessons in nm«ic, and all the 
children of my acquaintance go to school.” 

“ Does she remind you of any one else you have ever seen ?” 

Mr. Lewis paused before he replied. In his own mind he had 
no doubt of Jeannette’s identity, but if Gerald only knew her 
as Miss Daniel, the governess and teacher of music, it was 
clearly her wish not to be known otherwise. 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 


71 


“ Does she?” he repeated. “ Well, in a general way, she is a 
little like a cousin of mine, and she reminds me here and there 
of half-a-dozen others; but hers, you see, is a face that you 
always do think you have seen somewhere, —a very beautiful 
face, if I may say so without taking a liberty, Barry, my boy,— 
not so much for the face itself as what is in it. Do you know 
what I mean ?” 

“ Yes, your descriptive power is clearer than it might be, con- 
sidering,” Gerald observed: “and so you think your impression 
that you had seen Miss Daniel is satisfactorily accounted for.” 

“ To me it is. But I say, what is it, eh? Mrs. Barry looming 
in the distance. Rather young for that sort of thing, are we 
not ?” 

“ Do you know what the drop would be from that balcony 
outside to the pavement?” 

“About fifteen feet, I should say; but if you want to know, 
why don’t you have it measured ?” 

“ You will save me the trouble if you make another imperti- 
nent observation, and your punishment will not end there.” 

“Good gracious!” said Lewis, with a tragic start. “This is 
indeed too much. What untold treasure is in store for me?” 

“ Your invitation to dinner will be recalled, and then you will 
not hear the music Miss Daniel has promised to give me.” 

“ I might defy you to mortal combat on the balcony question. 
It would be little for me to despise your dinner — tell you to your 
teeth that your grog is tasteless and your cigars imported direct 
from Whitechapel; but the music— ask me not to forego that, 
lest reason totters on its ther’rone.” 

“ If you want to be an idiot we will go for a walk,” said 
Gerald. “I am at your service for the evening, Lewis, and we 
will finish this disrespectable day as you please. If you know 
of any one place that is rather worse than another we will go 
there, so that I may take my dose of folly at once and forget it 
with my headache in the morning.” 

“ More easily said than done,” said Lewis, from behind a cloud 
of smoke. “ You will soon come to me to be your mentor for 
another day like this. Why, you have seen nothing yet, scarcely 
had a glimpse of the life there is. You don’t know a password 
or a signal, and I can take you into places where your own 
language will be spoken for a whole evening and you shall not 
know the meaning of a single word.” 

“Thanks,” said Gerald, gravely, “ but you will do nothing of 
the kind. I have no desire to penetrate the small mysteries of 
the outside circle. If you can show me anything that will make 
me better or more contented with myself and mankind, you 
may; if you can only show me clever men and pretty women in 
different phases of moral degradation, I decline. I fancy I can 
see enough without the aid of passwords and signals, and I do 
not care for morbid enjoyment of any kind.” 

“ On mv word that was well done,” said Lewis, approvingly. 
“ Permit me to mix myself a little morality— I beg pardon, gin, 
warm, with sugar. Ah, Gerald, ray gentle youth, if you only 
knew what a little hypocrite you are.” 


72 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE, 


But Gerald did not hear the last; he had gone to change his 
dress, and Lewis could hear him walking about overhead. Sat- 
isfied that he would not be down for some few minutes, Mr. 
Robert Courtney took a swift survey of bis room, opened the 
several drawers of Gerald’s writing-table, and with the dexterity 
which told of practice at the work, took out what letters he 
found there, read and replaced them. Some he merely glanced 
through, one or two he looked at more attentively, but one, a 
double sheet of foolscap, drawn up like a brief, in Gerald’s 
writing, he studied with much interest. His ear was on the 
alert, but he did not hear the door open; he did not know it had 
been opened till he saw the light from the staircase thrown upon 
the wall. 

The silent entrance startled him; but when he saw it was 
Miss Daniel, and not Gerald, he was not so much disconcerted. 
He bowed politely as he folded the paper and put it in his pocket 
as if it belonged to him. 

“Mr. Barry has gone up-stairs,” he said. “ Pray do not let 
me be in the way. We are very old friends.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” she said, with a slow gaze that went from 
him to the desk, and then to the pocket he had put the paper in. 
“ I should imagine you were very old friends.” 

“ Ob, yes, we are; we have no secrets from each other — the 
dear boy and 1,” he said, annoyed at his own embarrassment; 
“ and pray do not think me curious or impertinent. Miss Daniel, 
if I ask you where we have met before ?” 

“ We have never exchanged a word, sir, till this moment.” 

“And yet I seem to have heard your voice,” he said, with 
meaning. “ Nothing could be more familiar to me.” 

“You are mistaken, sir, as Mr. Barry would tell you, since 
you are so thoroughly in his confidence.” 

“ Ah, yes, that’s where it is, he has told me, and left me in a 
worse state of mind than ever; however, madam, it does not 
matter whether I am mistaken, as you do not wish me to trouble 
my memory. It is all the same to me, Robert Courtney Lewis 
can be a gentleman where a lady is concerned in spite of ap- 
pearances.” 

Miss Daniel’s only answer was the very slightest inclination of 
her head and a smile of contempt which seriously lowered his 
vanity; he felt relieved when she had gone. 

“ Almost taken in flagrante delicto he said to himself as he 
carefully replaced the paper and closed the desk. “ How very 
humiliating it is to be found out, and I have only just seen 
enough to set me longing to hear more; and he is coming do>vn- 
stairs, T can hear him changing his boots. Now I wonder who 
the deuce he is, evidently he does not know, surely it cannot 
be that the governor — chutl Mr. Channing never had a secret 
of that kind, and there is not a single point of resemblance be- 
tween them, and if natural style and dignity with no end of 
good looks, and pride, and a little candor unconsciously go 
for anything in the way of blue blood. Master Gerald’s vital 
fluid must be cerulean of the deepest.” 

He was somewhat troubled in his mind as to what might hap- 


A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE, 


73 


pen should Jeannette say she had seen him at the desk; he could 
only reply that she was mistaken and he knew there was noth- 
ing displaced, but he did not think she was likely to speak; he 
had given her a hint that he suspected her identity, and she 
would not care to go into warfare with one who knew more of 
her than she might care to have told. 

“ For I am not mistaken,” he said to himself, “ I have seen 
her too often from the front and behind the scenes as well, but 
tliere is a puzzle here worthy of a Chinese ivory worker; it is 
easily understood that she would rather drudge always for a few 
shillings a day than go back to the stage and run the risk of 
falling in De Mortimar’s way again. But tlien what does it 
mean here ? Barry is evidently serious, and that, with the 
Delaney, means marriage — a risky thing if she is not certain of 
that blackguard’s death, and the fellow has as many lives as he 
has names; he would outlive ten cats in the one way, and use 
up a page of the Post Office Directory in the other.” 

When Gerald came down Mr. Lewis could not tell by his ex- 
pression whether Jeannette had spoken to him or not. He 
lighted a cigar and drank half a glass of soda water, saw that 
he had sufficient money in his purse for emergencies, and then 
said he was ready. Lewis would rather have remained where 
he was, but Gerald did not suggest it. 

“ I suppose we are two moderately intelligent beings,” Gerald 
observed, “decently clothed, and in our right minds, yet we are 
going to spend the next four or five hours in an aimless and 
desultory way, that does not even deserve the name of dissipa- 
tion. Have you any idea what we shall do?” 

“Not the slightest. Just whatever turns up, that’s where the 
engagement is. Come along, my clerical fiiend, I never moral- 
ize till the morning.” 

In the morning he was scarcely in a condition to moralize, for 
some time during the evening he lived at the rate of three hun- 
dred minutes an hour, and spent money in proportion. After 
that, life was a blank; he could only recollect a crash of glasses, 
a flash of lights, and an uproar, in the midst of which he saw in 
a dream Gerald’s tall figure and calm, pale face moving quietly 
and quickly, and he had a faint idea that he must have been 
ejected from somewhere. His boots looked as though they had 
been trodden on, and his battered hat looked at him with a 
reproach in every dent, but his watch and chain and rings 
were safe, and he could not have spent much money— out of 
five pounds more than three were left. He dragged himself up 
and explored the pockets of his overcoat; there he found what 
at first sight he took to be a piece of muddy newspaper put there 
by some practical joker; it proved, however, to be his hand- 
writing. Further investigation brought to light five champagne 
corks and about a dozen cigars, more or less burned or broken. 

“ I know,” he groaned, as he searched for his hand-glass, 
“this is one of my old sprees, this is. I got drunk and had a 
free fight, and was kicked out, and Barry left me in disgust. 
I am stiff and sore all over, and there’s a mark under my eye, 
and my face is twice as big as it ought to be, and my lips look 


74 


A SISTKirS SACRIFICE. 


as if the back of somebody’s hand had kissed them. Robert 
Courtney Lewis, there never was such a fool as you are, 
never!” 

Certainly when he rose, and made his way across the room 
for the water-bottle, there was little in the hideous aspect he 
presented to reduce the pitiable side of it. He could scarcely fill 
the glass or lift it to his lips when it was full. He was glad to 
hear the girl come up with his morning tea, and set the tray 
on a bracket outside.” 

“ All right,” he said, as^the girl knocked. “I am awake, but 
Mary! hi!” 

“Sir.” 

“ What time did I come home?” 

“T was in bed, sir, and don’t know.” 

“Sweet young thing. Hallo! some one has played the good 
Samaritan, — the very thing we have been praying for.” 

He put the blinds aside, and saw on the dressing-table a 
small flask of brandy and a bottle of seltzer. He drank the 
seltzer with part of it, and put the rest in his tea. Then after 
plunging his head in his bath, he gave it a vigorous rubbing, 
and felt that there was still something in the wmrld worth liv- 
ing for. But his peace of mind was not destined to last long. He 
heard a heavy footstep on the stairs, and then a sharp im- 
perative knock at the door. 

“ It's a policeman, or the cabman who brought me home, or 
the landlord to give me warning.” he thought. “Come in. You 
may as well come in, whoever you are. Somebody must have 
taken care of me, or I should have been locked up as usual.” 

The man who entered was Gerald, cool and bright, with a 
clear eye and fresh complexion, and with a very grave look 
under the smile with which he looked at the wreck before him. 

“ Hallo! old fellow,” Lewis said with a gladness Gerald by no 
means reciprocated. “So you were the good Samaritan, w’ere 
you? Jt was awfully good of you to stick by me, for I know 
what a turbulent brute I am when I get like that.” 

“ Well — you were; how do you feel this morning?” 

“Bad; worse than I did yesterday morning, but heavenly to 
what I did till I found yoiir medicine— for it was you who 
brought it. The soda and B. 1 mean.” 

“Yes, I stopped the cab at my place and brought the seltzer 
and as much brandy as I thought you would require — or ought 
to have. Do you retain an}' recollection of wliat passOtl last 
night ?” 

“None; but I suppose it was very bad, or you would not look 
so solemn. 1 wish you would tell me what happened. 1 dare 
say I had a lot of things to pay for and a dozen apologies to 
make.” 

“ None worth making or accepting; but you certainly gave 
me a new experience. For the first hour or so you w^ere simplv 
merry and amusing. You introduced me to half a dozen drink 
ing-bars, and spent a sovereign or so; then we went to Holborn, 
to some music-hall, where of course you knew the chairman, 
who was delighted to see you. The first glass you took there 


A SISTEWS SACRIFICE. 


7 ^ 


seemed to quarrel with all the rest and drive you mad, and the 
chairman was delighted to get rid of you. I got you out 
quietly, under the threat of leaving you; and then you pulled 
yourself together, drank some fearful mixture of vinegar, soda 
w’ater, Worcester sauce, and brandy; and instead of falling dead, 
as you ought to have done, you stood up soberly; and spoke with 
the wisdom of Solomon.” 

“I know,” said Lewis, mourafully; “ that is when I ought to 
have come home. The mixture always does that for me, and I 
generally get worse afterw^ard.” 

“ You did this time. You went into a dancing-room — a kind 
of casino, I think they call it. I should find another name for 
it, certainly. Then, after a hot drink, which you would have, 
you w’ent out of your mind for the second time, and commenced 
proceedings bj' ordering half a dozen of champagne. Seeing the 
state you were in, I insisted on having pints instead of quarts, 
and sharing the payment with you. For a time all went well, 
but even then you were getting w'orse every minute. I would 
rather not say what your conduct and language were like, but 
they were too disgraceful even for a place like that,” 

“ And they threw me out, I suppose?” 

“ No; I took you out. I apologized for you, paid for you, and 
did a little hitting for j'ou, till one or two of the better disposed 
of both sides helped me to get you into a cab, and then I held 
you down in your seat till you changed from a raving maniac 
to a sleepy imbecile; and so I brought you home, opened the 
door with your own key, carried you up here, and put you to 
bed.” 

“ It was awTully good of you, old fellow— awfully good. Any- 
body else would have let me be cleaned out and locked up. 
Give me your hand, my bov. I wull stick to you like a bird for 
this.” 

“ Wait before I give you my hand.” said Gerald. “ There is 
one thing I want explained. While in the cab, and I was hold- 
ing you down to save you from jumping out, you, in your mad 
rage at being held, turned upon me, and you said some very 
strange things, Mr. Lewis: not altogether coherent, but con- 
nected here and there. You said something about a desk and a 
document referring to me; and you spoke of Miss Daniel. Do 
you remember?” 

“ Not a syllable. I must have been out of my mind with a 
vengeance.” 

“You also spoke of Jenny Delaney, then of Miss Daniel again, 
and laughed at me. then, in a sudden burst of rage, you told me 
that you were in the governor’s confidence, that you knew some- 
thing of me, and that I had better be careful of that girl; ' let 
her alone,’ you said, ‘you can never marry her, and you had 
better not compromise yourself in any way.’ Now, in your 
sober senses, Lewis, what did this mean ?” 

“Just what it would have meant if you had heard me talking 
m my sleep,” said Lewis. ‘‘Mixing up my rambling fancies 
with things that had taken place. People who know me better 
than you '"do tell me that when I am in drink I am a most in- 


7G A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 

veterate and systematic liar; but my memory is not equal to my 
invention.” 

, “And that is all?” 

“ My dear fellow, I should be very sorry if, after your pluck 
and kindness, you gave any silly words of mine a second thought. 
I know nothing about you except what I have seen, but I have 
thought — as most in the ofiice have — that you are something 
more than you appear. Putting flattery aside, Barry, you were 
never born for a solicitor’s office, and Mr. Chauning would not 
treat you as be does unless there was something in it.” 

“ He is always courteous.” 

“Ay, but not as he is to you. His courtesy to those in the 
outer office is that of a gentleman to his inferiors; to you it is 
the courtesy of a gentleman to his equal — or more.” 

“We will accept that if you like. Now, why did you say 1 
could never marry Miss Daniel, and bad better not compromise 
myself ?” 

“ Well, I had been thinking of it and I thought it would be a 
pity; the young lady is very fond of you, and the kindest thing 
you can do is to let her alone before marriage comes into ques* 
tion. That’s where it isl” 

“ And there’s nothing more?” 

“ Nothing; but drunken men and others speak the truth 
fiometimes. I spoke it last night — for a wonder.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 

MY LITTLE JENNY. 

The trouble that Jeannette had foreseen had come upon her by 
Gerald’s acquaintance with these people, who had known her in 
the old days. She had a fleeting recollection of Mr. Lewis directlv 
he came in, but otherwise he was a stranger to her; but when 
he spoke, after she had seen him at the desk, she was sure he 
had recognized her. 

He was just the kind of man by nature and habit who would 
be one of the habitue a of a music-hall; put himself on friendlv 
terms with the manager; have a seat amongst the select few 
who cluster round the chairman; and be the envied and admired 
of the audience: and have the privilege of speaking by their Chris 
tian names to the professionals of both sexes; just in fact one of 
those who, having money to spend and a little to lend occasion- 
ally, would find favor in the eyes of the large school to which 
Hector de Morlimar belonged. 

But there would be nothing to fear from him. A single denial 
that she was the Jenny Delaney of the photograph would leave 
him without a word to say. Her only dread was that Mr. Moss 
might be taken by surprise when he saw her, and unintention- 
ally betray her to Gerald. She knew that if put on his guard, 
the kind-hearted agent would be discretion itself; but there was 
the difficulty, how could she put him on his guard ? 

The solution offered itself in an instant. Better than sending 
a message with a note or a letter bv post, she would go in per- 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


son. Gerald had gone to business, and she knew what time to 
choose for the agent. She left Calverton Street soon after mid- 
day, and went by omnibus to the Strand; from there it was an 
easy walk to his office. She wore a plain gray waterproof, and 
kept her veil down, but something in the lithe grace of her figure 
attracted more than one professional eye. When she stopped at 
the office door, several fur-trimmed gentlemen watched her from 
the opposite corner. 

Mr. Lascelles Moss had retired to his inner room. Truth to 
say he was in a bad temper; his reception in the morning had 
been productive of more trouble than profit, and he had been 
shamelessly swindled by a gentleman who had thrown up his 
engagement in Liverpool and gone to a better one in America, 
forgetting to repay a loan or forward the percentage lawfully 
due from him. Other trifles of a kindred nature had transpired, 
and Mr. Moss told his clerk, with a big expression, that he woulfi 
not see another lovely pro. that day. 

The clerk, however, knew that there were always exceptions, 
though he did not know how to answer Miss Daniel. She clearly 
did not belong to the usual class of the agent’s clients; her face 
was innocent of rouge or powder, bismuth or belladonna, yet 
there was something about her that, to his practiced eye, de- 
noted one who had worn the harness of the stage. 

“You can leave a message,” the clerk said, “but I do not 
think Mr. Moss will be able to see you, unless it be by special 
appointment.” 

“ I have no card, but I think if you say one of the Desmond 
family he will see me.” 

“ Certainly, madam.” And the clerk went in. 

For a man in a temper and disgusted with the world at large, 
Mr. Lascelles Moss did not seem as if he intended to be unhappy 
to a misanthropic extent. He was seated in his own magnifi- 
cent arm-chair with his feet in another, and was enjoying 
a splendid cigar, with a well-mixed tumbler of whisky and 
water. 

“It is no use, George,” he said, before his clerk had time to 
speak, “not another one. It’s my day out. Nothing I do 
will be any good. I started badly this morning. You can 
take down their names and the line, and tell them to call in 
a week.” 

“ I think you would see this young lady, sir.” 

“ Oh, you do, do you ? Oh, love at first sight for the million- 
and-oneth time. What is she like?” 

“ Well, different somehow. No making up, plain dress, no fur 
or jewelry, quiet and ladylike— very pretty.” 

“Go on, George. Bethlehem is not very far away. Very 
pretty, young, quiet, lady- like, plainly dressed, and not 
made up. If you tell me that again I will send for a strait- 
jacket, and haVe you removed before you begin to gnaw peo- 
ple.” 

“ I was to say she was one of the Desmond family.” 

“ This is somebody having a lark,” said the agent, as he re- 
moved his feet from the chair. “They went to Australia for a 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


year, and started not six months ago. Just send that quiet little 
joker in, George. A lady gifted with a natural sense of humor 
is not to be seen every day.*’ 

He waited till the quiet, gray-clad figure entered, and then, 
after a moment’s wondering stare, he recognized her. He was 
so glad to see his little friend again that the tears came to his 
eyes. 

“ Why, my little Jenny,” he said, leading her to his own chair. 
“ My dear child, if any one had told me this, — and I have been 
doing nothing else lately but think of you, — and only yesterday 
I was telling a gentleman all about you. He fell in love with 
your portrait, and wanted it, but that, you know, I never do; 
and so you have come to see the old man again. Well, now, 
this is better than an extra thousand a year to me. Where have 
you been hiding all this time ?” 

“ Not very far away, Mr. Moss. I thought I should be just as 
safe two miles away as twenty or a hund^i-ed, and so I was till 
now.” 

And who has interfered with you now ?” he asked, fiercely. 
“Let me see him, Jenny, and by old Harry I will teach him 
that I haven’t had the gloves on with prize men for nothing. 
Where is he to be found ? and what does he want ?” 

“He is to be found here, and I know he does not want to do 
me any harm; but he will unless he is very careful.” 

“Here?” 

“Yes; it is you yourself!” 

“ You little rogue! You are having a lark with me after all. 
Now, what have you been doing ever since you left me? You 
were not kind to go as you did, my girl.” 

“ I know, but I was afraid, and I wanted to be lost sight of al- 
together till I felt quite safe.” 

“ And what have you done for a living all the time?” 

“Taught music and attended outdoor pupils.” 

“ Lived on a crust that means, when you might have had ten 
pounds a week from me; but that, of course, is what you have 
come for now, and I can just put you into a good shop, certain 
money and good business.” 

“ I shall never take to the stage again, Mr. Moss, unless I see 
no other way of keeping from hunger, and then I will come to 
you; but this is what I want you to do for me. You are going 
to dine to-morrow with Mr. Barry, the gentleman who was here 
yesterday with that person Lewis?” 

“That person does not seem to be in favor with you, my dear. 
Yes, I dine with Mr. Barry, and a very nice fellow he is — a 
thorough gentleman; a little stately, perhaps, but true. Do you 
know him ?” 

“ We live in the same house, and we are engaged— he is going 
to make me his wife. But if he knew — I ought to have told 
him!” she cried, clinging to the agent’s hands; “ but I love him, 
and I could not give him up.” 

“I see — I see,” he said, compassionately; “you have not told 
him what you were —not that there was any harm in it. I can 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 79 

understand now why he was so struck with the picture* Do 
you want me to tell him for you ?” 

“ Not for the world. But he told me you were coming and 
asked me to come down and sing for an hour, and 1 thought if 
you saw me, not knowing I was to be there, you would have 
spoken to me as Jenny Delaney, and I should have lost him.” 

“ That is just what I should have done,” said the kind-hearted 
agent, “ but you need have no fear now. I am too old a sol- 
dier to be caught asleep on sentry duty, and I can help you now 
that I know what you want.” 

CHAPTER XVII. 

ON THE WATCH. 

The dramatic agent was very glad to see his little friend 
again; he was willing to help her, too, but when he began to 
reflect on the subject, he could not give her his unqualified ap- 
proval. Just as he had been ready to assist lier when she wanted 
to escape from lier tyrant, so he was ready to lend her his aid 
now that she desired it to keep her secret from Gerald, but he 
had a strong misgiving of his own. 

*• You have nothing to fear from me,” he said; “ but speaking 
as an old friend, Jenny, I question whether you have chosen 
the right man.” 

“ Do you not like him, then ?” 

“ So far as I know him I do; but he has a curious disposition, 
is proud enough for a prince, and if he found out you had kept 
anything in the background, you would get very little mercy 
from him.” 

“ None, I am sure,” said the girl. “ Yet I would rather take 
every risk than give him up or lose him now, and I should lose 
him, Mr. Moss, if he knew.” 

“But how would it be if he found you out afterward?” the 
agent suggested. “ I do not see how he could,” he added, see- 
ing her look of distress. “ Your secret is only known to our- 
selves, and he has no way of proving that you are other than 
you have told him.” 

“ I think Mr. Lewis recognized me.” 

“What, Courtney? He is nobody,” said Mr. Moss, with a 
flourish of his rings that put Gerald’s friend very far away in- 
deed. “ He thinks a lot of his own cleverness, but there is not 
a bigger ninny in the world.” 

“He is not so simple as you imagine,” said Jeannette. “When 
I went into the room he was at Gerald’s desk, looking through 
his papers, and when he knew I was there he put one in his 
pocket as if it were his own.” 

“You certainly astonish me; that was the conduct of a sneak, 
and Mr. Barry ought to know the kind of a man he trusts. Have 
you told him?” 

“No. Mr. Lewis seemed to think I saw what he had been 
doing, and gave me to understand, though not in words, that 
he knew me, but if I kept my counsel, he would keep his.” 

“Very well, Mr. Courtney,” said Moss, with a reflective nod, 


80 


A SlSTJBk^S SACRIFICE. 


“ if that is the sort of man you are, you will not do for me: but 
upon my word, Jenny, I almost think you must have been mis-^ 
taken. Courtney is not wliat I should call a gentleman— not 
like Barry, for instance — still he is good-hearted and honest, for 
1 have seen him sober and drunk, and in every stage between 
the two, and — except that when he is about halfway he talks as 
if Rothschild was a fool to him in the way of money, and is 
ready to row, ride, fight, fence, and swim anybody for a thou- 
sand and the championship of the world — he is always the same^ 
Occasionally he wants to clear the bar single-handed, but if 
some one puts him in a corner and sits upon him, he is soon all 
right.” 

“ I am not mistaken, indeed; he was at Gerald’s desk.” 

Then it could not have been for money — Bob Courtney has 
plenty of his own; and if he had not, I am sure he would rather 
stay at home than borrow a dollar he could not repay, or take a 
sovereign if a sackful w ere before him. He was looking at the 
papers, you say ?” 

Yes.” 

“Well, it’s a sneakish thing to do; but, you know, a fellow’ 
who has been brought up in a law’ver’s office does not see any 
harm in it. The law is a kind of hot pitch that you cannot play 
with without getting your fingers smeared; and Courtney likes 
to know people’s affairs. Still, if I were you, I should mention 
it to Barry, just incidentally, as it were. You are very fond of 
this young fellow, Jenny.” ” 

“ No words of mine can tell you w’hat he is to me. I fought 
against it as hard as I could; I pointed out to him the difference 
between us; my parents w^ere in trade, and if left to myself I 
could never hope to be other than I am — a governess and music- 
teacher.” 

“ Oh, that be hanged, Jenny! There is always ten pounds a 
week for you on the boards.” 

“ Yes, it would be better in the w’ay of money,” said Jeannette, 
with a smile; “ but people would not think so much of me then 
as they do now; and I wouhl rather have mj’^ few shillings as I 
am than as many pounds by doing what I did.” 

“ You are a good girl, Jenny — alw’ays were,” said the agent, 
patting her shoulder .affectionately. “And, in case of a break- 
up at any time, you can alvvays find your way to Highgate. 
Don’t be afraid to come; I will never ask you to go on the 
boards again. There’s a house full of children, and you can 
take your place amongst them: I know you are too independ- 
ent to eat the bread of idleness, and you need not; you could be 
a companion to the grow’n-up girls and a teacher to the younger 
ones, as an elder sister might be. Is that understood ?” 

Jeannette put both her hands in his. 

“You are very kind to me, Mr. Moss; and should I ever w’ant 
a home, I will come on those terms. But I shall be safe w’hen I 
am married to Gerald. You never hear of ” 

“ De Mortimar — without forgetting the mar — no. There is no 
doubt that he died long ago, though you have nothing to fear 
from him, I believe the scoundrel was married already when he 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE, 


81 


married you — married, ay, to half a dozen; for I do not think he 
thought any more of signing his name in the certificate-book than 
I do of signing a check.” 

“ And I thought I loved him,” said Jeannette, with a slight 
shudder. “When I look back and see into what depravity he 
would have dragged me I wonder that I did not die.” 

“ Mine is a different kind of wonder,” Mr. Moss observed, 
with unusual gravity; “ my wonder is that he did not make 
you what he made the rest. I could count a dozen he has sent 
adrift to go their own way, and we know the way a girl goes 
then; but you were too good for him, Jenny. You had a 
guardian angel watching you somewhere about the wings. 
Your pretty face never grew like the rest; you never cared for 
their slang, nor their ways, nor their company, and you were 
right — yes, Jenny, you were right. I could give you ten pounds 
a week, and make a handsome bit for myself, but I would 
rather see you as you are.” 

“ And you will not forget to-morrow ?” 

“ Forget— not much ! A dinner with a gentleman and some 
of your music! By the way. Jenny, do you think this young 
gentleman bad any motive in asking me ? Was he laying a 
trap for you, do you think?” 

“Yes; I do think so; he would never have asked me to play 
before strangers except for that; and he will watch me very 
closely to-morrow.” 

“Now I must confess I am taken in,” said Lascelles Moss, in 
a tone of genuine vexation, “ for upon my word I did believe 
he had invited me out of pure good fellowship, taken a fancy to 
me as I did to him. If you were not so fond of him, Jenny, I 
should say do not have him at any price. It’s not a good sign 
in so young a man to lay such plants as that. To-morrow we 
shall be there.” 

“ And you will be sure that you do not by inadvertence 
speak to me as Jenny: I shall be introduced as Miss Daniel.” 

“ Daniel! I will remember, Jenny. Leave it to me; I pulled 
vou through a scrape before, and after having sold Mr. de Mor- 
timar,— even without forgetting the mar,— it would be rather 
odd if we could not manage to be enough for this keen young 
shaver. Do you know, Jenny, if I were a girl, he is not the 
sort of fellow I should take to.” 

“ You would if you knew him as I do,” Jeannette said, with a 
loving, thoughtful smile. “ I know what his faults are, and 
the cause of them, and I know that he— loves me.” 

“ There you hare the pith of it all — he loves you. Let a wom- 
an once get that into her head, or her heart, whichever the 
mainspring of her conduct is in, and she is gone. I liope you 
will be happy, Jenny. He could not have a purer-minded, bet- 
ter girl, and you have enough grace and beauty for half-a-dozen 
ordinary girls, and now, can I do anything for you ? Trust me 
as you would your father or your uncle. You will want some 
money, for I don’t suppose those poor little hands have saved 
much, hard as they have worked.” 

“ Gerald has given me plenty. He would make me take it, 


82 


^ SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


and 1 do not kdow how to thank jou for all your kindness, for, 
you see, it is not as if I could tell him what a dear old friend 
you have been . After to-morrow we may never see each other 
again.” 

“ That is one of the things I don’t like in your marriage, little 
girl. Marriage ought always to be an honest, straightforward 
business, a sort of ‘ here you are. you know all about me, and 
if you are not satistied let us say good-bye;’ but then we never 
know. I may strike up a friendship with him, and if he is not 
too big a swell to find his way to Highgate, we shall be all right, 
and when you are married, Jenny, you can send me a little 
keepsake.” 

“ Be sure I* will, and never forget that this secret is ours 
alone.” 

••I never talk in my sleep, Jenny, and if by any chanco 1 do 
take too much, Mrs. Moss tells me she might as w^ell speak to 
an image. Mrs. Moss is not always elegant or flattering in her 
similes, but she is generally correct. No, my little girl, I shall 
never forget that this is our secret, and if ever it was put to me 
that you were Jenny Delaney, I would bear false witness as 
readily as if I had served an apprenticeship in Scotland Yard, 
and did not know a Bible from a song-book.” 

“Sometimes,” Jeannette said, earnestly, “I feel that I am 
doing wrong or going into danger. As if I ought to take those 
things which have happened lately as a warning, for it seems 
so strange that within so short a time of our marriage, Gerald 
should have become acquainted with you, and seen my photo- 
graph.” 

“ It may seem very strange to you,” said the agent, consol- 
ingly, “but it comes easily within the long chapter of coinci- 
dences. Mine is a public office; thousands come and go in the 
course of a year, and every one properly introduced is free of 
the place. For my own part, I do not see how he can ever prove 
that you were on the boards unless you tell him yourself.” 

“ It is too late now.” 

“ A pity, rather; but are you sure?” 

“ So sure that if he married me at all, it would be out of pity, 
and that ” 

“I see. Perhaps you are right, Jenny. His ideas of what 
things should be are strong ancl curious, and boyish. And vou 
think that even if he found it out, or you had to tell him after 
you were married, that Ids love for you would be so much more 
than it is, and he would forgive the deception ?” 

“ I have not looked so far. When I am his wife, I can hope 
for the rest.” 

“Certainly he could not put you away for a thing of such a 
kind.” 

“I should not wait for that,” Jeannette said, very quietly. 
“ If he discovered the deceit, and did not care for me enough to 
forgive me, he would never see me from that hour.” 

“ You would leave him, you mean; and there yon would make 
a mistake. Jenny, except that he would not let you stay .away 
long. Besides, you would have a splendid answer. There is no 


A STSTEH^S SACRIFICE. 


83 


shame in your secret, and you could say you kept it because you 
loved him and were afraid to lose him; "and if he did not forgive 
you — why, then he would deserve to die like a miserable old 
bachelor, or go to the dogs his own way.” 

Jeannette rose to go; the agent made her drink a glass of 
wine, and tried to cheer her up to the last moment with the as- 
surance that all would yet be well. But when she was gone, he 
shook his head over his unsmoked cigar, lighted another, and 
mixed a stronger tumbler of grog, in a dissatisfied way. Just 
as he began to drink it, Mr. Courtney T^ewis came in. 

“ If you had been half an hour later, I should have liked it 
better,” said the agent, with some irritation still u^wn hhn; 
“but as you are here, you can have a smoke and a drink, ami 
then clear out. I have no time to spare this afternoon.” 

“ Then I am sorry, for I have plenty. Who was that lady you 
let out just now ?” 

“ One of my clients. Why?” 

“ T fancy I saw her last night.” 

“ Where?” 

“ In Barry’s rooms; and I fancy I have seen her before. Does 
she not remind you very strangely of Jenny Delaney?” 

“Not so much as you remind me of an infernal idiot,” said 
the exasperated agent. “I thought you were a gentleman, 
Courtney, in your way, and was always glad to see you as one. 
but if you bring the sneaking, prying habits of the lawyer’s 
clerk and private detective into our friendship, I will kick 
you out and cut you afterward, whenever and wdierever I see 
you.” 

“ You need not get into a passion, old fellow,” said Mr. Lewis, 
not prepared for this outburst, “ I was only in joke. I thought 
I saw the lady leave your office, but she may have been merely 
passing your door, and she did remind me of the one I saw last 
night. However, I have been seeing double lately.” 

“ Well, my boy, take your double sense of vision somewhere 
else for the afternoon,” said the agent, more seriously than in 
jest, though he pushed the decanter and cigar box toward his 
visitor; “ the fact is I have been served out this morning, and 
want to go through my accounts. No more business for me 
to-day.” 

Mr. Lewis did not stay long. The welcome had in it those 
two extremes that leave a man in doubt whether he has been 
touched with ice or fire, but he was not the less convinced that 
he had seen Miss Daniel leave the agent’s door, and that she and 
Jenny Delaney were the same. 

“I ought to tell the governor,” he reflected, “ but if I only go 
with what I think, he will put me down as what Moss was polite 
enough to call me just now; and I do not like to interfere much 
in anything that may bring me into conflict wuth Barry; he is 
just the kind of man who would go for a fellow and take all 
risks. My best game is to watch and wait a little longer.” 


84 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

QUITE SATISFIED. 

Whatever niuy have been working in Gerald’s mind, Jean- 
nette saw no change in him. There was a certain dryness in his 
tone, and brevity in his words, that at other times would have 
disturbed her, but she set it down to her own nervous fancy. 
She did not know him yet, or at the last moment it would have 
been better for her had she told him the truth, and trusted to 
his love. 

He was not satisfied. The doubt engendered in his youth and 
always ready to leap into life, had been awakened, and he could 
not help thinking there was something strange in the turn 
matters had taken recently. First the photograph coming so 
soon after he had spoken to her, almost in rebuke, about her 
penchant for the music of the lowly, as exemplified in what are, 
with a heavy kind of humor, termed music halls. Then the 
singular behavior of Mr. Lewis on the night of the same day, 
when in his drunkenness he spoke of Jenny Delaney, and added 
the name of Miss Daniel in derision, and then there was the hint 
— half threat, throvvn out by Lewis that he knew more of Gerald 
than he wanted to tell. He had recalled the words in his sober 
moments, still the effect remained. 

“ The fellow is a spy upon me,” Gerald thought, with a savage 
sense of pleasure at thie idea of thwarting him. Mr. Channing 
could not have known his agent, or he would never have set 
upon me a fellow who cannot keep his tongue or his secrets 
when in liquor; but to be warned is to be armed twice, and I 
know. 

“ And Jeannette,” he went on, in his meditation, “ if there is 
any truth in this, she must remember I have given her her 
choice. If she is really that poor, unhappy girl whose portrait I 
saw, some sign or word must betray her when she meets Las- 
celles Moss. She will be on her guard, of course, as I have told 
her he is coming, but he will not; so, if by any possibility I can 
be deceived up to the point of marriage, and even afterward, 
should I find she has deceived me, that hour I put her from my 
door. She. if playing a part, marries me at her own risk. I 
care for her too much to say more of my own doubt.” 

This was where the evil spirit of his father came in. Had she 
told him the truth, he would have had pride enough to give her 
up, but it would have been in a kind and generous manner; if 
she was deceiving him the consequence must fall upon her alone. 
His passion for her beauty made him ju&tify himself in marry- 
ing her, and throw the blame upon her should he have cause to 
cast her off. There was more of a man’s calculations than a 
boy’s genuine affection in this young gentleman. 

He ordered a splendid dinner without going to extremes, and 
the local Gunter served him well. Lascelles Moss never missed 
an occasion for wearing evening dress, and he came out resplen- 
dently. Evening dress is a cruel and a crucial test. Tlie two 


85 


A SISTE.WS SACRIFICE. 

men on wlioin it never will sit well are easily picked out in a 
drawing-room where gentlemen are. The professional man is 
inevitably betrayed by his self-consciousness, and the rich trades- 
man, grown rich by circumstances beyond his expectations or 
control, suffers from self-consciousness, but with an added un- 
easiness that clings to him always and everywhere out of his own 
house. The true repose grown of daily habit and association 
only comes to him wdio is to the manner born. 

Mr. Robert Courtney Lewis passed muster decently, because 
there were no ladies present. For the man about town there is 
no felicity where the long-lost grace of manner and w^ell-bred 
voice are called upon. Lewis had a wholesome dread of dining 
with the other sex, a still more inveterate dread of the drawing- 
room ordeal afterw^ard; and society is very hard upon a man 
who is not hardened into a semblance of good breeding by ex- 
perience and contempt; the elegant roue to whom woman is as 
nothing but tlie broken bits of an ideality whose hopeless un- 
reality he has long since found out, can bring with him the 
deferential manner and honaage of his cultured youth, to which 
it was natural, with the skill of a trained actor to whom it is 
not. When women care to learn and act upon the lesson that 
they make men what they are, men will be better than they 
are. 

The local Gunter had an advantage over others of his kind. 
Ilis waiters were genuine servants out of place, carefully 
dressed, neatly shod, and with irreproachable livery. They did 
not suggest the wrong wines or put the dish over the right 
shoulder, or remove too suddenly, and they kept their counte- 
nances, no matter how rich the anecdote; and they could stand 
behind a chair without breathing along the parting of a gentle- 
man’s hair. Mr. Courtney Lewis detested being attended in 
this fashion. He could not chaff them or be funny with the 
wit of the restaurant and the table d’hote, and he had an un- 
pleasant conviction that they did not think much of him, — that 
in some inscrutable manner they knew he was not in the habit 
of sitting dowm to such a dinner or in such company, and he 
w^as right. 

“Now this young fellow,” Lewis thought, with a healthy 
sense of his own deficiencies, “ was but a schoolboy, surely, six 
months ago, and all he has seen in the way of life is what he 
has seen at the governor’s, yet he sits here at the head of his 
table with a coolness Channing himself could not beat, and a 
style far beyond him. I could not do it for the life of me, and 
I begin to think that the restaurant buffet, the public-house bar, 
the Haymarket, the Argyle, and the music-halls, soon knock all 
the gentleman out of a fellow.” 

“ I promised you some music,” Gerald said, when the waiters 
had gone, taking with them the fragments of a banquet that 
had set the seasons at defiance. “ The presence of a lady is an 
innovation, I know, but I think you wdll forgive me for putting 
tradition aside.” 

He said this as he went to the door, and heard the whispering 


86 


A SISTEJR^S SACRIFICE. 


of a soft silk dress on the stairs. A moment later he led Jean- 
nette into the room. 

“ Miss Daniel,” he said, “ Mr. Lascelles Moss,” and he 
watched them so closely that not the moving of an eyelid 
escaped him. 

On her part there was not the slightest start of surprise, noth- 
ing but that wonderfully telling, almost imperceptible smile with 
which a lady meets for the first time a gentleman in whose favor 
she is prepossessed at once. As for Lascelles, he was simply 
perfect. Mr. Moss receiving his fair clients in his office, and Mr. 
Moss introduced to Miss Daniel in Gerald’s rooms, were two dis- 
tinctly different beings. 

“ Mr. Barry spoke of your introduction as an innovation,” he 
said; “ I take it as a most delightful precedent, that should be 
accepted from this hour.” 

He retired very easily, satisfied that the watchful eyes upon 
him had detected nothing. Mr. Lewis had remained uneasily in 
the back-ground; an unusual fit of nervousness and gaucherie 
had taken possession of him, and he was so embarrassed that 
when he heard his name mentioned he committed the solecism of 
holding out his hand. Miss Daniel had compassion upon him, 
and did not let it fall unnoticed. 

“ This gentleman and I are not quite strangers,” she said to 
Gerald, “ I saw him here — let me see — the day before yester- 
day.” 

“ And I had the bad taste to say I thought we had met before,” 
said Courtney, grateful to be relieved from his awkwardness. 
There are times when the tact of a sympathetic woman can help 
a nervous man from an embarrassment which is worse than 
physical pain. “ You see,” he added, turning to Lascelles Moss, 
“ it was just one of those fleeting resemblances that would make 
an impulsive ” 

“ Idiot,” suggested Moss, kindly assisting him to a word. 

“ Well, not much better; and it made me speak for the mo- 
ment.” 

“ You have apologized to Miss Daniel in the most truthful 
manner,” Lascelles observed, as he led Jeannette to the piano. 

No man can do more than acknowledge his bad taste and his 
imbecility. I can forgive you freely, for I myself saw a resem- 
blance to a young lady I once knew.” 

Jeannette opened a" book of music, and struck a few chords. 
Gerald thought he had caught her name very well, as he had 
only heard it twice. 

“ IMay I ask the name of my wraith ?” Jeannette said, turning 
her face toward them. “ I used to think till recently that I en- 
joyed an exceptional immunity from these accidental like- 
nesses to other people; but this is the third time.” 

“ The young lady I knew, I knew professionally,” said Moss, 
with the sadness of bereavement in his tones. “ Miss Delaney — 
Jenny we used to call her. Poor child! she was very young, 
and had a bad time of it, one way and the other; and she was 
as good as she was pretty. That would be nearly four vears 
ago.” 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE, 


87 


“Since she was as good as she was pretty?” asked Gerald, 
with the faintest inflection of irony. 

“ No, sir — she was always that, and would have been had she 
lived to be a thousand. But Miss Delaney died about that time, 
and there will never be another like her on the stage.” 

“ I knew her,” said Jeannette, turning again, while she 
touched the keys slowly and softly. “ I taught her most that 
she knew, but she bad been taught before. We were alike, I 
know — almost sufficiently alike to be sisters.” 

“ I would not go so far as that,” Lascelles Moss observed, 
“ people often say that when it is the merest nonsense. There 
are general points of resemblance certainly, but nothing in par- 
ticular. If you had ever stood side by side anybody would have 
seen the difference. As a proof, she would not go to America, 
and I sent a young lady in her place.” 

And in her name?” asked Gerald. 

“Oh, decidedly; and she did just as well for those who had 
not seen Jenny herself. Of course, it would not have done for 
me nor any manager over here! but over there it was all right, 
and there she is to this day.” 

“I wish—” Gerald began, then checked himself — “that is to 
say, it would have been as well for Miss Daniel if nature had 
chosen some one else on whom to play this freak.” 

“Your pardon, Mr. Barry,” said Lascelles. more gravely, 
“and with due deference to Miss Daniel, she herself might be 
proud to know my little favorite, Jenny Delaney, as her dearest 
Ldend. No mother could desire a better daughter — no man 
wish for or obtain a better wife. I knew her, sir, respected her, 
and loved her in my own rough way, and I like to think of her 
as one who had many trials and endured them bravely; tempta- 
tions — well, there was no such thing as temptation for her. She 
kept her own way as steadfastly as a star does, always as bright 
and as true. You will excuse me for speaking feelingly, but 
that is always a tender point with me. I brought her out, you 
see, and looked after her, and got fond of her. You would re- 
spect the stage a little more, Mr. Barry, if you knew it as well 
as I do, and I am bound to say the stage would be more respected 
if all the ladies in it were— what she was.” 

Gerald bowed, filled his glass in silence, and drank to his 
guest. Jeannette went on playing, and presently began to sing; 
she filled the room with thrill after thrill of melody that held 
her audience enchained, Gerald was satisfied at last. She had 
gone through her ordeal, at how much pain to herself he never 
knew. 

“How could I have doubted her?” he wondered, when his 
guests were gone. “There can be no question now of her 
identity with the others. It was a morbid delusion of my own; 
but I am glad I put her to tliis test with Lascelles Moss, for it 
has dispelled the delusion; otherwise I might have lost her.” 


< 


88 


1 SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE MORNING OP THE TWENTY-THIRD. 

If only that bride is happy upon whom the sun shines on her 
wedding-day, then, surely, Jeannette Daniel might have taken 
the worst augury from the sky which greeted her when she 
went out to meet Gerald. The clouds were one dense mass of 
leaden wintriness, tlie pavements wet, and the roads clogged 
with mud; but the girl took the sunshine in her heart. Nothing 
in the shape of an omen would have turned lier back; if she 
had anything in the w ay of superstition it was her love for 
Gerald. 

He had gone out an hour before, because he felt that if they 
went out together their very faces would betray their purpose. 
He was to meet her at the registrar’s office wdthin the hour, and 
he told her to be punctual, but when she arrived he w’as not 
there; he had met his hete 7ioir, Mr. Robert Courtney Lewds. 

Had that gentleman been one of the many wdio have to earn 
their food by the work of brains or hands, his career would have 
terminated at an early date either in the casual ward of a work- 
house or a public lunatic asylum, but having plenty of money in 
the present, and a well-paying — if not from a moral point of 
view a good — profession in view’-, he was at liberty to drink him- 
self into as much folly and violence as he chose, so that he could 
pay a magistrate’s fine or fee a friendly policeman to see him 
home. 

But the continuous dissipation w’as telling upon him in spite 
of his youth; he could eat but little, and his nights were broken 
by feverish unrest. He w’as glad to be out in the streets at the 
earliest hour, when he could get a morning stimulant, no matter 
at what w’retched tavern, or m whose disreputable company he 
found himself. 

He had been prowling about the neighborhood, from one place 
to another, when, at nearly ten o’clock, he saw Gerald leave his 
house. Lewds had been standing at the corner of the street, 
hoping he would come; he would have gone to the door, but he 
knew that he did not find favor in the keen black eyes of the 
little landlady, and Gerald did not make him very' w’elcome 
when he came at odd times; but here he w’as at last, clean and 
cool, wdth a bright eye and a steady foot, and not particularly 
pleased to see his friend. 

“I have been as far as this several times this morning,” Mr. 
Lewis said, “ and thought of looking in; but you are such a cu- 
rious customer that a fellow never knows.’’ 

“ The curious fellow is he who stands at a street corner, in- 
stead of trying his fate at the door, or going home to take the 
rest he evidently needs.” 

“ Ah, that’s where it is!” Mr. Lewis observed, with a nervous 
smile. “ If I could rest, I should not be here. I have been out 
since half-past six.” 

Trying to get sober op soda and brandy, wdth a variation of 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


89 


gin and milk, and a bad cigar in a worse atmosphere. You are 
quite a creditable man to know, Mr. Lewis, and if I were a friend 
of yours I should be proud of you!” 

“You might have a worse fiiend, Master Gerald Barry,” said 
Lewis, with a change of tone; “ and even if you do not care for 
friends, it is not wise to make enemies. I am, perhaps, as well 
acquainted with my own stupidity as you are; but the time to 
tell a fellow of it is hardly when he is cleaned out and shaky.” 

“ If I can do anything for you ” 

“ Well, if you were a friend, I would say lend me a pound or 
two, and have a pint of fizz; but as it is, I wear a watch that is 
always worth a tenner of mine uncle’s, not that it often goes to 
him.” 

“ Consider me your friend, and have what you want witliout 
going to your relative. As for the champagne, if you really 
think it would do you good, I daresay you know where we can 
get the best.” 

Mr. Lewis was as easily pleased as he was hurt, and though 
the offer of a loan was welcome for the time, the idea of a drink 
was more to his liking. 

Gerald had only suggested the wine and the money to get rid 
of him. He was sure that for this day at least there would be no 
work for Mr. Lewis; and he had a way of hanging on that noth- 
ing less than a direct rebuff would affect; but when Gerald made 
his friendly proposition, lie reckoned without his guest. Once 
having obtained possession of him, that gentleman had no in- 
tention of leaving him. 

“We may as well have a game of billiards,” he said, when the 
first bottle was empty and he had insisted upon a second; “ you 
are not tied to time, I know.” 

“Pardon me, this is the day on which I have to go to Ash- 
ford Lynn, and there are things to arrange with Mr. Channing 
first.” 

“ If that’s the case, I may as well go with you and put in an 
hour or two myself,” said Lewis. “ I should be out of mischief 
there, after all.” 

“But I am not going just yet,” and Gerald wished his too 
faithful friend somewhere in the middle of the Thames, if not at 
the bottom. “ I have some calls to make.” 

“ You can take me with you. my boy. I shall not want to 
come in,” was the obliging rejoinder, “unless you are going 
somewhere very particular.” 

“ I really am. I am late already, and must get a hansom at 
once.” 

“ A ride in a hansom is the one thing I should like,” said this 
exasperating and self-elected Pylodus, “and you can put me 
down where you please. Which way are you going?” 

“ Through the park,” said Gerald, biting his Im. 

“ Then you can put me down at the end of Pall Mall, and I 
will go in another. Will that do?” 

Gerald looked at his watch; he bad wasted one hour already 
with this nuisance, and Jeannette would be at the office before 
him. 


90 - 


A STSTEH’S SACRTFICE. 


“ Yes,” he said, “ that will do.” 

He kne\v’ that with a good horse, he could take Lewis as far 
as he had promised, set him down, and then return his own 
way in something like a quarter of an hour. He took but little 
of the wine; he bad no occasion to take more than he required, 
for Mr. Lewis had a weakness for champagne and a misguided 
belief that it was the favorite drink of royalty and of the classes 
about it. Even on this occasion, Gerald’s constitutional tem- 
perance did not forsake him; he was rather inclined to pride him- 
self upon it as a virtue, without being aware that with him it 
was purely a matter of temperament. 

When they left the tavern Lewis was steadier on his feet than 
when he entered, and just sufficientl}’^ far gone mentally to feel 
aggrieved at Gerald’s evident desire to get rid of him. They had 
not gone far before less than fifty yards in front of them they 
saw Miss Daniel. She did not see them, and Gerald made no re- 
mark, but Lewis noticed that he bit his lip again, and hailed a 
cab somewhat impatiently. 

‘’You will excuse me, I know, old boy,” he said, “but isn't 
that rather ticklish ground for vou ?” 

“What?” 

“ Being in the same house with such a charming girl as Miss 
Daniel, and ” 

“ If I did not know you were always so much under the in- 
fluence of drink as scarcely to be responsible for what you say 
or do,” said Gerald, with a flash of his eye that made his com- 
panion shrink into a corner, “ I would fling you out into the 
road. Miss Daniel is my friend, and when you speak of her, 
speak as you would of my sister or my wife. Is it beyond you 
to understand that a gentleman can have such a friendship or 
respect for a lady ?” 

“ What a fiery fellow you are,” said Lewis, apologetically. 
“Of course I understand it with you, but I cannot say so much 
for myself; but then I am an irreverent kind of brute and take 
the world as it is.” 

“That is as you see it, with a mifid that never goes beyond a 
tavern bar or a ballet- girl.” said Gerald, with a contempt that 
stung Lewis keenly, “ and, until you change your mode of life, 
your mind never will go beyond these things.” 

Courtney thanked him gravely, and promised to profit by his 
wisdom; but there was a sleepy and cunning sarcasm in his eyes 
when he alighted at tlie end of the Mall. 

“All right,” he said, “ and thank you for the lift. 1 am go- 
ing to the oflftce. See you there soon* I suppose ?” 

“ Within an hour or two.” 

Gerald watched him go under the Colonnade toward the Hay- 
market and disappear in Epitaux. To have more champagne, 
as Gerald thought, but he was mistaken. Mr. Lewis did not go 
beyond the doorway, he had a glass of curacoa brought him by 
a waiter, and was outside again in time to see the cab turn 
round. He took another and told the driver to follow the one 
in front. He sat back in the corner and watched. When he 
saw Gerald’s cab stop and Gerald himself get out and walk on 


A SISTERS hACRlEWE. 91 

till he readied the registrar’s, the truth flashed upon him. Now 
he could wail patiently enough and he had not to wait long. 
Tlie civil ceremony of marriage is neither tedious nor impressive, 
and in less than half an hour (iterald and Jeannette came out 
together. He waited till the}' were out of sight and then went 
into the place they had just left. 

“ Am 1 too late?” he asked blandly, of the clerk. 

“ For what, sir ?” 

“ A friend of mine, Mr. Barry, wished me to be a witness this 
morning. He was to be married to Miss Daniel.” 

“Well, sir, he did not seem to expect any one,” said the un- 
suspicious clerk, “but you are too late. They have been gone 
scarcely two minutes.” 

“ Married ?” 

“Oh, yes,” smiled the cleric. “ That is what they came for.” 

“He will be annoyed,” said Lewis, with an air of vexation, 
“it will seem so unkind of me; but we kept it up so late last 
night — how the deuce though did they manage it without wit- 
nesses.” 

“They had the requisite witnesses,” the clerk said, thinking 
of the five pound note resting snugly in the corner of his waist- 
coat pocket. “ If you had been half an hour sooner, sir, you 
would have been in time. Good-morning.” 

This revelation sobered Mr. Lewis more than a long sleep and 
a cold bath would have done. His duty, if he acted up to the 
promise he had made, was to tell Mr. Channing what had hap- 
pened without delay. On the other liand, if Gerald wished it 
known, he would tell that gentleman himself, and then Lewis 
would have played the spy for nothing. 

“ If Channing thought as much of me as he does of his 
haughty young gent,” he said to himself, “ he would not put me 
to the dirty work of watching him; and Robert Courtney Lewis 
is as much a gentleman as either of you, my friends, though he 
does take more than is good for him. 

“I will see how it goes when Channing speaks to me, and if 
he has not heard of the marriage, I shall not speak of it, and 
then I shall have you in my power. Gerald Barry, esquire — a 
secret belonging to you must be worth keeping.” 

But that secret was almost too much for him before the day 
w'as over. He put in an appearance at Lincoln’s Inn and saw 
Mr. Channing, 'who perceived his condition at a glance, and did 
not suggest anything professional. 

“You have been irregular lately, Mr. Lewis,” he said, as that 
gentleman hung up his overcoat; “ and that is not according to 
our agreement.” 

“I have not been well, sir.” 

“Certainly you do not look well. If you were a client of 
mine, with a fortune and a family, I should advise you to in- 
sure your life at the earliest possible date, no matter how heavy 
the premium. You are killing yourself.” 

This was said quite gravely, and without repartee. Mr. 
Channing rarely jested, and w hen he did, it was not with an 
inferior. 


9‘3 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE, 


“So a friend told me this morning.” said Courtney, “and I 
thanked him for the information. But what is a man to do 
with his time? I must have pleasure and recreation of some 
kind.” 

“ But do you get it?” asked Mr. Channing, with a senile. “ I 
know exactly how you would defend yourself, Lewis. You 
would say that you have the discomforts of a bachelor’s quar- 
ters; but would you be different if you were at home with your 
relatives, or had a home of your own ?” 

“I think so. It must be" pleasant, after all, to have a home 
and some one to care for a fellow. It is only a question of 
means. I have money enough. I am not much good as a 
bachelor. I could not do as Barry does — pay a heavy rent and 
spend my evenings in my own rooms. But then he can read 
for ten hours at a stretch, or play his violin or piano. I dare 
say I could if I had his incentive, except that I don’t care for 
music unless I get it out of doors.” 

“ His incentive — what is that?” 

“ The young lady I have spoken of before.” 

“Yes, Miss Jeannette Daniel — whom you suspected of being 
identical with some music-hall performer. Well?” 

“ So far as I can find out, I am wrong. For the rest, they are 
very much together — too much for the safety of either, if she 
were not so thoroughly capable of taking care of herself and he 
such a miserly fellow.” 

“ How would you define ‘ mi.ser,’ as applied to him ?” 

“ I mean that his ideas are about a hundred years old or more 
— that he thinks a woman good till she is bad, and when she is 
bad he thinks she is better out of the world than in it.” 

“Then, in your judgment, there is no danger either way ?” 

“ I am sure there is not. He is not the man to take advantage 
of her position or her love; he says there is no reason why a pure 
friendship should not exist as easily betw’een aw-oman and a man 
as between two men or two women. He was kind enough to tell 
me that it might be, and most likely would be quite beyond my 
comprehension; and it is.” 

“He is rather bitter with his tongue,” smiled Mr. Channing; 
“ it is a trait I should like to see him subdue. You do not think, 
then, he is likely to be drawn into a marriage with her ?” 

“ I can answer for that as if it were myself,” Mr. Lewis said, 
with an air of unmistakable conviction; “I can most entirely 
answer for that.” 

“ Yet it is a dangerous position for him,” said Mr. Channing, 
musingly; “it is the one rock ahead on which the nobkst in- 
stincts are wrecked. A liaison of such a nature w^ould iinbitter 
his w^hole existence--a marriage with her would be ruin.” 

He turned to Lewis as if he had not spoken aloud. 

“ He is very late for to-day; he can hardly have forgotten the 
importance of the date; have you seen him recently?” 

“ This morning, sir; he told me then he had a few calls to make, 
and wmuld be here soon.” 

“And speaking honestly, you are sure that he is not likely to 
marry this girl ?” " ’ 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE, 


93 


“ I am sure. I wish I were as sure of teu thousand a year.-’ 
The solicitor bowed as if quite satisfied and went to his pri- 
vate room. He wrote a brief letter addressed to Lord Farn- 
bourne, Ashfcrd Lynn: this he inclosed in a small morocco 
case, fitted with a miniature Chubb lock; the key he put in a 
separate case, such as might have been made for a scarf pin, or 
a set of studs, this he folded in a sheet of paper like a letter, and 
placed in a separate envelope. He looked at his watch, it was 
five minutes to three. 

And he must take the half-past four express,” he said to 
himself, “ surely he cannot have forgotten. 1 would not have 
him miss the appointment for very much. When he returns, I 
will take care to get him away from that house; highminded 
and generous as he his, the temptation and the danger could 
only bring him endless regret or complete ruin.” 


CHAPTER XX. 

EN ROUTE. 

Five minutes later, when Mr. Channing had more than once 
consulted his watch with an anxious look he rarely wore, Ger- 
ald walked in, with no appearance of being behind time. 
Lewis, who watched the manner of his entrance, wondered if 
anything ever could disturb that imperturbable young gentle 
man. 

“ This is unlike you,” Mr. Channing observed, giving Gerald 
his hand. “ Still, you will be in time.” 

“Am I late, sir? I thought the hour arranged was three.” 

“ Two.” 

“ I am sorry, but I was not sure.” 

“ And it does not matter. We have spoken so fully on this 
subject that it will not take five minutes to give you my final 
instructions. But where is your dressing-bag? Surely you 
have come prepared ?” 

“ For what, sir?” 

“ Why you may have to stay a day or two— or three.” 

“Still, a change of linen is all I shall require,” said Gerald, 
with a laugh, “ and that I can get on my way to the station.” 

“It is too late now to rectify it,” Mr. Channing observed. 
“ But you must give me a short note to your housekeeper for 
what is required, and J will send the things to-morrow. You 
will w^ant more than a change of linen, Gerald, for, of course, 
while you stay you will dine with the family.” 

“ Then I would rather not undertake the mission,” Gerald 
said, w’ith a proud back throw of the head Mr. Channing knew 
so well. “I know what dining with the family means when 
the guest is a professional man. They cannot put him in a 
separate room, as if he were a thief, nor insult him by the offer 
of a seat in the steward’s room, even if he sat on the right hand 
of the butler, so they give him a seat at the chief table, and — 
tolerate him.” 

“ When the professional man is a gentleman they more than 


94 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 


tolerate him,” said Mr. Channing; “ the pity is that so many 
professional men are not. You must remember, Gerald, that 
you go as my direct representative, and I should not send you 
if I were not satisfied as to your reception. As for Lord Farn- 
bourne, he is well known as an eccentric, and one of his most 
prominent eccentricities is, that he will not give his hand a sec- 
ond time to any one who is not a gentleman; the man may have 
a name that dates back from the Deluge, and a genealogy with- 
out a doubtful branch in the tree, but if he be not a gentleman 
himself — in the fullest sense of all the word implies — Lord Faru- 
bourne w'ill have no more of him. You had better write the 
note now. I will see that you have them for to-morrow even- 
ing, and then you will please me by wearing these.” 

He took from a drawer, in one of the cabinets Gerald had no- 
ticed on his first visit to the house, a little case that contained a 
set of studs, — the most curious Gerald had ever seen; they were 
in dead gold of antique fashion; the center of each a diamond 
cut in the shape of a crusader’s shield; round these were eme- 
ralds, deeply set, but singularly clear. 

“This is your birthday,” Mr. Channing said, with a gentle 
smile. “You see I had not forgotten it.” 

“You are more generous than I deserve,” Gerald said, over- 
come, and repenting somewhat of his proud and not unfre- 
quently abrupt treatment of one who evidently tried to be his 
truest friend. “ You leave me at a loss for thanks.” 

“There can be no question of thanks between you and me, 
Gerald. I am more than thanked in being able to say that I am 
satisfied with you.” 

He sat with Gerald till the time came for him to take the 
train, talking of Lord Farn bourne chiefiy — bis eccentricities, 
his wealth, his generosity, and his fine sense of justice. Mr. 
Channing seemed to know the family almost as well as if he 
belonged to it. 

“You will like him!” Channing said. “There are some 
oddities about him that will meet your own. I would give you 
a few hints as to your conduct, but perhaps you are best left to 
yourself.” 

Gerald bowled, as if that w^ere a matter of course. 

“ Although,” Mr. Channing went on, “ he is a bachelor of the 
most pronounced type, he is fond of company, and he has two 
favorities, who are nearly always with him. They are cousins, 
--the children of two brothers, and related to him on the female 
side; they are very handsome, and true specimens of the aristo- 
crat. Of the man, Captain Hillier St. Derrington, I need not say 
much. He is not likely to come in your way. He is simply an 
elegant, lazy spendthrift, with the negative virtue of having no 
vices. With such a man, indolence is a splendid safeguard. 
Had he possessed your disposition, he would either have made 
a name or gone to the dogs long since.” 

“And been bad company for the dogs,” Gerald said, Muth un- 
intentional irony. 

“Why do you say that?” 


A SISTERS Sacrifice. 95 

“ Because a man must be when he sinks to the moral kennel; 
the dog, even a common mongrel, would be his superior.” 

Perhaps you are right. Tlie principle that makes you speak 
so is a good one, yet I would rather have heard you say it ten 
years hence. There is not much charity in your nature, I am 
afraid, Gerald.” 

“ I do not know, sii*. I would never refuse help to man or 
woman, but I would rather give my money where 1 could give 
my hand as well.” 

“ Yes, I understand. You mean that you would have no pity 
for the man who needed your help if he had forfeited his right 
to your sympathy; but in* the case of a woman?” 

“ I should have less than no pity if she bad forfeited her right. 
Not ten or twenty men, even of the worst, could do the deadly 
mischief of one bad woman given up to her sin.” 

Mr. Channing looked at Gerald in grave, reflective silence; he 
would have si)oken on the subject, but changed his mind. 

“ Hillier St. Derrington’s cousin Helen is one of those superb 
creatures you only meet in such society,” he said; “such a 
woman is the production of a century. I have seen them to- 
gether, her cousin Hillier and herself;* he is about thirty, she is 
five-aud- twenty.” 

“And they love each other?” 

“ No; she loves him, and I tell you, Gerald, when you look at 
him, as perfect outwardly as a man can be, you will look at one 
who is simply a clod of clay, delicately shaped, polished, and 
painted into a matchless piece of Dresden, if you like, but clay 
after all, and as hollow' as a Dresden image. He has not soul 
enough even to see how beautiful she is, or know that she loves 
him. or cares for it.” 

“ Is she an intellectual woman ?” 

“ If she fell into the hands of a man who could wake her into 
life, I think he would And her incomparable. You wdll have to 
take care of yourself in that direction.” 

“ When she is four years older than myself, and in love with 
another man ?” said Gerald. “ Thank you, 1 shall be more than 
safe at Ashford Lynn.” • 

“Well, you w’ill know' your danger,” said Mr. Channing. “'I 
have introduced you beforehand; and now your time is up. 
Here is the case you have to give Lord Farnbourne; the key of 
it is in this envelope; there is nothing more. I will send these 
things to-moiTow', and if you are asked to stay a week I suppose 
you w’ill not mind ?” 

“ If I do, I w ill write and ask you to relieve me.” 

“Then I shall have to come myself. Still, do not stay one 
hour longer than you feel inch ned. Write to me overnight, and 
you shall see me there next morning.” 

Gerald took his hand, and held it in silence for some mo- 
ments. 

“ What are you thinking of?” Mr. Channing asked, with the 
reflective affectionate look he sometimes gave at the boy’s face. 

“ Shall I tell you?” 

“Yes.” 


96 


A SISTEirS SACRIFICE. 


“ It is only what I have often thought. Most of us have our 
day-dreams, I suppose— dreams in which we see our ideal selves, 
our ideal relations, our ideal friends; and when I have pictured 
my ideal father I have always seen you.*’ 

Mr. Channing started with a strong thrill that Gerald felt in 
the strong hand he held. 

“ When the great mysterious story of the might-have-been, 
with all its tears and pains and pathos, is written,” he said, his 
rich voice trembling, “you may think of this as one of its chap- 
ters; for I loved your mother, Gerald, though she never knew it 
by sign or word. There, then, you have my secret; some day 
you may have one for me, and if you have, bring it to me as 
you would if 1 were the father you have pictured. Will you 
promise me that ?” 

“I will— 1 do.” 

“ There is nothing you have now?” 

“ Now — there is nothing.” 

And Gerald’s eye met his guardian’s proudly. The time had 
not come yet; he had formed a plan of his own for reconciling 
Mr. Channing to Jeannette. It was to let him see her now and 
then, confess his own love for her, win his consent, as Gerald, 
felt sure he could, and then tell him of their marriage. 

“ I never knew him so well as I do to-day,” said Gerald to 
himself. “ He is too fond of me to be angry at anything I have 
done; and when he sees Jeannette, he will admit I have done 
well.” 

He smiled as he thought of his guardian’s half-playful caution 
respecting Miss St. Herrington, a stately woman of twenty-five, 
with seven years’ experience of the world, and all the knowl- 
edge her previous teaching gave her. ¥/hat would she be com- 
pared with his own innocent Jeannette— his little wife— the 
bride of a few hours ? 

The express that took him down to Ashford Lynn did not 
travel at the rate expcicted when a train is made up of first and 
second-class carriages only; but it went rapidly enough for him* 
He did not like being taken away from Jeannette. He had 
formed an unfavorable impression of the place he was going to, 
and the people he might meet there, and Jeannette had not been 
happy at his going. 

“ Not that I think anything can happen, my darling,” she had 
said at parting, “and you know I am not superstitious; but I 
do not like you to leave me on this day.” 

“ But, my pet, you knew it was to be, and you would not ask 
me to break my word; besides, I shall be back to-morrow.” 

“ But 1 am afraid you will not. Something tells me you will 
not,” she had persisted, “ and then I shall be sure we have been 
wrong.” 

He remembered how he had laughed at her gently, and 
caressed her, told her how unlike she was to his own little Jean- 
nette, and promised that nothing should keep him away from 
her after the next day, yet now at the beginning he knew that 
his stay might be protracted for a week or even longer. 

For no one but Mr. Channing would I stay,” he said, when 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


97 


the train drew up at Ashford Lynn; ‘‘hut I feel as if I could 
not displease him. What a dismal station and what a wretched 
evening.” 

The door was opened for him by a porter who inquired: 

Any luggage, sir ?” 

“None, thanks. Can I get a conveyance from here to Ash- 
ford — the house — Lord Farnbourne’s, I mean?” 

He had seen a pair of carriage lamps flashing through tlie 
gloom, and as he asked the question a footman came up. 

“His lordship has sent the carriage for you, sir,” he said, 
respectfully; “ we had a telegram to say you would be here.” 


CHAPTER XXL 

AT THE LYNN. 

Xt seemed to Gerald that no matter how eccentric Lord Farn- 
bourne might be, he had gone beyond the furthest limit of 
courtesy- in sending a fully-appointed carriage to meet the repre- 
sentative of a professional man. There was a strangeness, too, 
about the whole affair. Mr. Channing did not usually take the 
trouble to send a telegram when Gerald went on a mission for 
him. 

“ Not that it is for me to inquire,” the young man thought. 
“ I have accepted a position and must fulfill its duties as they 
come. But I would rather go through business of this kind in 
the usual way, and have nothing whatever to do with eccentric 
men of title.” 

But for the carriage or a guide Gerald would certainly never 
have found his way to the house — gas was an unknown institu- 
tion at Ashford Lynn. There was not a light of any kind on the 
road, except when a stray rustic passed carrying a primitive lan- 
tern with a candle in it; or a farmer’s gig, not much better pro- 
vided, went slowly along the roadside. What the house itself 
might be like, Gerald could not tell, but he thought the man 
must be very eccentric indeed who would choose to reside in 
such a place during the dreary months of winter. 

He changed his mind, however, when be saw the house; 
gloomy as it looked in the dull evening shadows, there was 
enough in the general outline to tell him it was a noble build- 
ing. At a first impression he would have said it was at least a 
century-and-a-half old; a second glance told him it was the 
complete restoration of a design that must have had its origin 
in the very early days of Elizabethan architecture. 

Gerald had formed his own opinion of the gentleman he was 
about to meet, and fitted him with the surroundings that suited 
his idea, but his preconception was upset at the beginning. He 
had expected to find an antiquarian in an antiquarian house, 
with an old-fashioned servitor or two, and in the way of woman- 
kind one ancient dame, at most, in mittens and a carefully- 
frilled cap. But he saw at once tnat Lord Farnbourne’s eccen- 
tricity was purely personal. He kept a full establishment, and 
the house within wanted nothing in the way of light and 
warmth and comfort, 


A SISTER’S SACRIEICE. 


“ His lordship will see you at once, sir,” a servant said as he 
relieved the young man of his overcoat and rug, “if you will 
please follow me.” 

Following him, Gerald was taken through the hall and down 
a long passage on the left of the entrance; half way in this and 
just beyond a staircase was a very heavy door covered with 
cloth. From this point the floor was thickly carpeted, and 
Gerald guessed intuitively that the rooms from here were sacred 
to the master of the house. They were, in fact, as he found 
afterward, the museum, picture gallery, library, and study. The 
servant ushered him silently into the last and closed the door 
behind him. 

A tall flgure rose slowly from a table near the fire, and ap- 
proached him — a tall figure that stooped slightly at the shoulders 
as if from extreme height and old age, and the long habit of 
poring over books. There was nothing singular in his appear- 
ance, but he had a face that any thoughtful man would have 
singled out in a crowd — long, gaunt features, a high forehead, 
heavy eyebi ows, clearly defined; very light blue eyes, so pierc- 
ing that the impression they produced at first was not a pleas- 
ant one; and a curiously-gray complexion. This was Anthony 
Lord Farnbourne. 

“ You are welcome, Mr. Barry,” he said, in a voice that 
seemed quite without inflection. “ Mr. Channing tells me you 
are willing to place yourself at my disposal for a few days.” 

“ Yes, my lord, I am entirely at your service; though it was 
not until the last moment I was aware I should be required to 
stay.” 

“ Does that make any difference in your arrangements ?” 

“ None that will not be rectified to-morrow.” 

He placed the morocco case and the key on the table; Lord 
Farnbourne indicated a chair in silence and resumed his own. 
He opened the case and took the papers out, looked through 
them, counting rather than reading them, speaking to Gerald 
from time to time. 

Presently a bell rung. 

“ T had forgotten,” he said. “You have not much more than 
ten minutes to dress, Mr. Barry.” 

On the impulse of the moment Gerald would have told him 
that he was not prepared, then it occurred to hitn that the 
representative of a professional man would not be expected to 
be prepared as if he were an invited guest. He bowed simply, 
Lord Farnbourne touched a bell. The man who had at first at- 
tended Gerald in the house, answered it. 

“Show Mr. Barry to his dressing-room,” his lordship said; 
and with the samp respect which had marked his bearing from 
the first, the gray-headed servitor preceded him to a chamber on 
the first floor; by its situation Gerald thought it must be imme- 
diately over the one he had just left. 

“ 1 have not seen your portmanteau, sir,” he said. 

“ I did not bring one, by an oversight,” said Gerald, quietly. 
“ Do you always dine in state here ?” 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 99 

“ During the thirty -five years I have been with his lordship, 
I have never known it otherwise.” 

“Then you will have to thank me for an innovation,” Mr. 
Barry observed, removing his tie and collar, but the valet was 
gone, as if a sacrilege had been suggested. Gerald laughed as 
he plunged to the elbows in water, and while he was vigorously 
applying the towel a gentleman entered. 

“ Pray don't mind me,” he said, with a pleasant smile, “ I am 
Derrington. Hillier St. Derrington, you know, and I have heard 
of your little difficulty from Sterling. Just stand up and let me 
see if I can fit you.” 

Gerald stood up smiling inwardly, while the gentleman who 
had introduced himself took a cool survey of him, and in that 
moment he took a liking for Hillier St. Derrington against his 
own inclination. 

“You are an awfully big fellow,” Hillier said, “but I think 
we can manage. I have a lot of things down here, some I used 
to wear before I went out of training, and you are an awfully 
long fellow too, but then military tailors make one’s togs aw- 
fully long. Bring them in, Sterling.” 

Mr. BaiTy did not care to wear another man’s clothes, but 
there was a kindness in the other’s indolent good nature that 
he could not resist, and he accepted a suit selected from a heap 
that the valet carried over his arm. Garments so admirably cut 
as St. Herrington’s looked well, though they did not fit exactly, 
and Gerald felt quite easy in them. The captain watched the 
progress of his toilet and congratulated him. 

“ The tout ensemble is irreproachable,” he said, “ and you know 
after all it is the thing. Uncle is eccentric enough, but he does 
like the amenities. I did not catch your name from Sterling, 
but you are young Channing of course, though I never knew he 
had a son.” 

“Nor has he,” said Gerald, “ to my knowledge; but I am in 
no way related to Mr. Channing; he is in some sort my guardian, 
and I am here as his representative. My name is Barry, Gerald 
Barry.” 

“ Seems to me as if I must have heard it before,” said Hillier, 
with everv appearance of a man who was going through the 
unwonted effort of trying to think of something; “ but, T say, 
you don’t mean to say you are going in for the law, eh ?” 

“ Why should I not?” 

“Oh, eh, of course; but you really do not look a fellow of 
that sort, you know. You ought to be in the Guards. I am 
in the Guards, when I am there; but I am generally on leave. 
Must say I like it best, too; and now we had better go. I must 
introduce you to my cousin Helen, and her mother. Awful 
woman her mother is!— all right so long as you don’t let her see 
you are afraid of her. You will have to take her down to 
dinner.” 

“ If I survive the ordeal, I will thank you.” 

“ That’s good. You are rather a cool fellow, ain’t you ?” 

“ I am not usually irritable,” said Gerald, putting the antique 


100 


.4 SISTEE^S SACRIFICE. 


studs into his shirt front. While he was adjusting the second, 
Hillier picked up the third. 

“Seems to me I have seen something like these before,” he 
said, with another effort of thinking of something; “ awfullj^ 
low to notice, but these are unique, — unique is the word.” 

“They are a birthday gift from Mr. Channing. I am of age 
to-day.” 

“ By Jove! Nine years to live before you are up to me. It is 
an awful time to get through; wouldn’t do it over again for the 
world! Come in for much ?” 

“Nothing,” said Gerald, with subdued bitterness. “My 
heritage will not make me richer, and it could not make me 
poorer.” 

“ Pardon me, I say; you nearly killed old Sterling.” 

“ How r 

“He came to me with hair on end! He couldn’t have been 
worse if he had seen the family specter! Said you were coming 
to dinner undressed! He meant in a frock-coat, you know.” 

“ Is there a specter in the family ?” 

“Ours is a name,” the guardsman said, more gravely, “and 
we never mention it here; but I don’t mind to j-ou; it was an 
uncle of mine. Lord Farhbourne’s younger brother went wrong, 
you know. An awfully bad lot he was, ’pon my word. You 
know we can stand a good deal, but society was obliged to drop 
him. Not that I have any reason to be sorry, because the beggar 
might have turned steady and married properly; and if there 
had been a boy, I should have been knocked out of this — thirteen 
thousand a year, you know!” 

“ Enough to console you for the family disgrace,” Gerald said, 
dryly. 

“ Not so sure of that, for the old fellow would not have kept me 
out in the cold, and there is a boy somewhere, unless he is dead. 
I should like to find him; it isn’t his fault, you know, that 
things were not square. If I knew where he was, and had the 
money, I would give him a thousand a year.” 

They went into the drawing- room, "and Hillier introduced 
Gerald to the two ladies who were there. The younger he knew 
beforehand, by Mr. Channing’s description — a tall, pale, statu- 
esque beauty, with liquid eyes, that Gerald met full as he 
bowed. On his part it was intentional, whether it was soon her 
part, he could not tell; but there was something unexpected in 
his look that made her lose her self-possession for the moment, 
and brought a quick, almost angry, flush to her face. 

“ You are very easily touched, my lady,” he said to himself, 
“ in spite of your pride and your five-and-twenty years. Some 
one has said that a woman— no matter what her rank is — is only 
a woman, with all her instincts and her passions. Shakespeare 
had the same idea when he made the Duke of Gloucester say of 
the Lady Anne — ‘ She is a woman, therefore to be wooed; she 
is a woman, therefore to be won.’ You are four years my sen- 
ior, and you are as proud as any peeress in the kingdom, and 
you look upon me as something like a superior clerk in 
Mr. Channing’s employment; but if you were to throw down 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


101 


the glove, I thiuk I would pick it up aud give you the heart- 
ache.” 

It fell to his lot, as Hillier had said, to take Mrs. St. Derring- 
ton in. Perhaps it was through her that he entertained such 
irreverent and unfriendly thoughts of her daughter. Mrs. St. 
Derrington was not a pleasant woman; she had been handsome, 
with that strongly outlined kind of beauty which takes a vul- 
ture-like expression as age begins to tell. She considered her- 
self stately and impressive, —she was generally considered 
stately and impressive, — and the knowledge of this made her 
disagreeably self-conscious. 

Mr. Channing had said nothing of her, not perhaps contem- 
plating the possibility of Gerald meeting her. He found his 
way easy enough with St. Den-ington and Lord Farnbourne, 
even with Helen, but ber mother irritated him. Her weakness 
was ancient lineage, and like most people who talk on that sub- 
ject she knew very little about it. When Gerald studied gene- 
alogy for pastime, he did not know he was laying in a store of 
knowledge that would be very useful to him occasionally. 

“Of course, aunt, as you say, he was a St. Derrington,” 
Hillier observed, “and that would account for his valor and his 
virtue; but I am not inclined to think we go so far back as you 
imagine. To me our name sounds like a corruption of Herring- 
town, a place where that particular kind of tish comes from; 
might it not be so, my lord ?” 

This was his recognized mode of teasing his aunt, and it al- 
ways put the old lady on her dignity. Gerald saw a quiet 
twinkle in Lord Farnbourne’s eyes that told him of a quality 
hitherto unsuspected; he was in liis way a humorist. 

“ Mr. Barry will tell you,” he said. “ I hear from Channing 
that he is an encyclopedia of heraldry and genealogy.” 

“Then Mr. Channing sent me here with an unfair introduc- 
tion, my lord. I only studied it so far as to prove a theory of 
my own.” 

“ You have a theory then on this matter?” 

“That the history of the natural aristocracy is more interest- 
ing than that of tradition.” 

“ Tradition?” 

“ The unproved, madam; but that which is most frequently 
accepted because it is most flattering. Given a name and a 
county,— a date from fifty years back, I would find half a dozen 
pedigrees equally incontestable.” 

Had he avowed his belief in communism or confessed himself 
an atheist, Mrs. St. Derrington could not have looked more 
shocked. 

“ How can there be such a thing as natural aristocracy?” she 
said, “ when a single mesalliance would ruin the race forever?” 

“ Then our aristocracy is ruined, irretrievably, madam; though 
1 myself must confess I think it strengthened and restored. 
What would you say if I mention three high families, and even 
name that of "a lady whose noble character is revered through- 
out the world, who largelv owe their present wealth and power, 


103 A S1STER*S SACRIFICE. 

and she— the lady I have mentioned— her origin to a house- 
maid ?” 

“ Quite incredible!” 

“Yet it is so. Not more than a hundred years ago, my house- 
maid— Betsy Starkey, as she was known— I say a hundred years, 
but let me be correct. It was in seventeen hundred and sixty 
that Elizabeth Starkey, the daughter of what might be termed 
a peasant farmer in Lincolnshire, married her master’s younger 
brother, a dealer in corn and cloth and a bill broker. Scarcely 
a mesalliance, you would say.” 

“ In social position none; but he was rich ?” 

“ Very. I will speak of their tl^ree daughters, the eldest of 
whom, Sophia, became Lady Burdett in ’93: the second, Susan, 
was Countess of Guildford in ’96; and the third, Frances, was the 
first Marchioness of Bute in 1800.” 

“ Surely, sir, this is a page from some romance ?” 

“ You are right, madam — the romance of truth, taken from 
the driest of records, the history of a banking house. That 
housemaid died in eighteen hundred and fifteen, old and imbe- 
cile; but she was the honored wife of a man whom princes re- 
spected, and her daughters were respectively Lady Burdett, the 
Countess of Guildford, and the first Marchioness of Bute. Her 
grand daughter and chief heiress is the present Baroness Burdett 
Coutts. Surely you will admit that humble origin has borne 
good fruit here V” 

“Really you astound me. But this is a purely exceptional 
case.” 

“I could recapitulate a score almost exactly similar. The 
story is as well known to the middle-class multitude as the 
life of Wellington.” 

“ So the inference is.” said Hillier, “ that in these days money 
is a patent of nobility?’ 

“ No, sir,” said Gerald, with a gravity that amounted to a re- 
buke; “ in this case it is the noble use made of it.” 

“ That’s good,” said the guardsman; “ you have no idea, my 
lord, what a fellow he is for saying good things. If I were with 
him for an hour, he would keep me going at my club for a 
week!” 

“ Very easily.” observed Lord Farnbourne, quietly. 

“ You have defended your theory of a natural aristocracy most 
completely, Mr. Barry, and you have no respect for tradition ?” 

“ Every respect, my lord, when it is taken as a starting point, 
not a resting-place. If I had an ancestry, it would be my pride 
to find out the noblest name, and so live that mine should be 
placed by its side, or above it.” 

“ What is your age ?” 

“ Twenty- one to-day.” 

Lord Farnbourne said no more, and the ladies rose. The old 
peer remained hut a few minutes after them. 

“Give me your arm to the study door,” he said to Gerald. 
“ You must come to me in an hour or so; and Hiilier, you can 
show Mr. Barry what there is worth seeing; except my cabinets; 
that I will do piyself,” 


A SISTEH^S SACRIFICE, 


103 


CHAPTER XXII. 

i SHOULD LIKE YOU TO STAY. 

Ip anything could have startled Captain Hillier St. Herring- 
ton out of his normal torpor, it would have been that request of 
Lord Fafnbourne’s. The old peer was slightly lame, the result of 
a fall received during some geological expedition, and for more 
than a dozen years had not been able to walk without assistance; 
but no one had ever been asked to help him, — no one had ever 
been allowed to help him, except his valet Sterling, or his niece 
Helen. 

Sterling himself met them near the foot of the grand staircase, 
and advanced to tender his services as usual; but Lord Farn- 
bourne waved him aside. 

“ It does not matter, my good Sterling,” he said. “ Mr. Barry 
is kind enough.” 

The man stood quite still, looking from one to the other. He 
watched them with a dazed look in his eyes; then he went into 
the dining-room, walking like a man in u dream. 

“ There isn't a thoroughfare through the wall,” said the lazy 
voice of Hillier; “ and you should not take to somnambulism so 
early in the evening, Sterling. I say, though, you have not 
been to the particular bins, you gentle old lunatic, have you ? 
By Jove, that sounds like a joke, but I don’t quite see where it 
comes in. Here, give me something to shy at you! Have you 
seen the family specter again ?” 

“Beg your pardon, sir; it is only one of those feelings I have 
sometimes. What did you say was the name of that gentle- 
man ?” 

“ Barry — Gerald Barry. I know I am right because I remem- 
bered Gerald reminded me of Gerald Boucicault, or Griffin, or 
Bawn— that’s it. Gerald Griffin wrote the ‘ Colleen Bawn,’ with 
a Peep-o’-Day scene, and ‘ Arrah-na- Pogue,’ where a fellow comes 
down a tree and picks a girl out of the water. “Did you ever 
see it. Sterling?” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ It was really good; they sing some capital Irish songs in it— 
‘The Wearing of the Green,’ and ‘The Cruiskeen Lawn’ and 
‘ Come Back to Erin;’ but that’s his name, Gerald Bawn— no, 
Barry.” 

“ Did he come from Mr. Channing in Lincoln’s Inn ?” 

“ Yes, Sterling; he is going to be another of them. Lend you 
some money and serve you with a writ, take a mortgage on your 
property and walk into it himself. Splendid form, Sterling! 
Such a pity, too. He had much better be in the Guards, and 
take the chance of being shot, as I do. But I say. Sterling, is it 
all right, do you think ? He liasn’t come after uncle’s cabinets, 
has he ? By Jove, you know, I have a revolver somewhere; get 
it loaded, and keep it in your room, but don’t make any more 
noise than you can help if you have to tire at him.” 

“ Does he remind you of any one, sir?” 


304 


-A &TSTEJ}*S SAVNJFJCK 


“ Well, yes; I seem to think I have seen something like him 
before. Does he remind you of any one ?” ? . . . ::a 

“I?” said Sterling, in the same dazed way. don’t know', 
sir. I am getting old. I have been fifty years in the family— 
five-and-thirty with his present lordship, sir—and my memory 
is bad, and my sight is not what it was; but I thought for a 
moment — I only thought; yes, it must be that I am getting very, 
very old,” 

If Hillier St. Derrington had not forgotten his slow idleness, 
and ran to him in time, the poor old valet would have fallen to 
the floor. 

“ Sit down, you curious old card,” he said, placing a seat for 
liim, “and take a glass of wine. No; well-water is best. 
Why, you poor old chap, you are shaking all over. I must tell 
uncle to give you a pension, and let you rest. In your case, at 
least, long service shall be an inheritance when my time comes.” 

“Your time will newr come,” said the old man, solemnly; 
“you are not a Farnbourne, sir, and to-day— yes, to-day is the 
twenty-third of January.” 

“ What if it is, you stupid old almanac? Come, let me help 
you to your room. Mr. Barry will be here in a minute.” 

And Gerald’s footstep was heard. The very sound of it made 
the old man start and tremble again. 

“Take me out before he con.es,” he said. “I do not want 
him — a — stranger, to see me like this. He would not under- 
stand.” 

The guardsman led him along with much kindness till he 
saw a footman, then he resigned his charge. Gerald came up 
at the moment, and the valet shrank from him with a moan. 

“One of his fits, sir,” the footman said, apologetically. 
“ Something must have frightened him. He is always like this 
then.” 

He carried the old man away. 

“Came into the dining-room, and nearly had a fit,” the 
guardsman said. “1 say, you don’t carry one of those things 
they call the evil eye with you, do you ?” , . 

“ I hope not.” 

“ We may have a cigar here. I often do. Going up to the 
ladies is optional, and you only have an hour to spare. They 
never expect it of me. But that old fellow is in a queer state 
about you. Asked me your name, and where you came from, 
and if you reminded me of any one, and told me the day of the 
month as if he had been an almanac, the supernatural old 
idiot. He was certainly off his head. Why, he said my time 
would never come— to drop into Farnbourne" shoes he meant.” 

“He is very old,” said Gerald. “At his age a man cannot 
always keep his senses clear.” 

“ Over seventy. Fifty years in the family. Knew uncle’s 
father. The name and title die with uncle, you know. He can 
give me the name, but I would rather keep my own.” 

“Fifty years,” Gerald repeated; “then he must be greatly 
attached to the family,” 

“Well, our family specter, represented by a blank space- la 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


106 


the picture gallery, and a name we never mention, was a demon 
and a brute, you know, and in one of his bad fits he nearly 
settled this poor old chap. Threw him down a flight of stairs, 
kicked him, and lashed him with a hunting whip; he was para- 
lyzed afterward, never moved for ten months, and if anything 
frightens him, or reminds him of it, he is sure to be taken like 
this.” 

“ Has anything frightened him to day ?” 

“ Not that I know, unless you have, and like me you are not 
particularly ugly; but, I say, you settled the old lady; floored 
her cleanly, and she will never forgive you.” 

Gerald smiled ironically; the thought of a woman’s malice 
troubled him very little. 

“ Uncle has taken an unaccountable fancy to you,” Hillier 
went on, “ no one but my cousin Helen has ever taken Sterling’s 
place. Don’t you think Mrs. St. Derrington rather impressive ?” 

“ Very, but impressive people are not in my way. Your im- 
pressive man is bad enough, but an impressive woman is an 
unmitigated bore.” 

“And you are only one-and-twenty,” said Hillier, with re- 
flective admiration. “ What a nice Doctor-Johnson-like person 
you will be at my age. You are going in for the law, though; 
we shall have a second Thurlow or Sir Samuel Romilly. Come 
and have some billiards. It is a treat to have a fellow to play 
with; one gets tired of beating a woman or being beaten by 
her, and I believe if Helen put her mind into it she could give 
me points. Do you play well ?” 

“ About the average game for an amateur. I consider twenty 
an exceptionally good break.” 

“ I can do more than that,” said the guardsman, and so he 
could, but he found that though Gerald considered twenty a 
good break he nearly always made twenty, and at the end ©f 
the hour Hillier had lost two games and was hopelessly behind 
with the third. 

“Are you going to stay ?” he asked, taking his defeat with 
good-natured grace. 

“ For a few days.” 

“ 1 should like you to stay,” he said heartily. “ There is some- 
thing about you a fellow does not often meet with, and you 
will just suit uncle. He won’t keep you above an hour; he goes 
to bed early, and then we can have some more.” 

When he went into the drawing-room he narrated most faith- 
fully all that had transpired down-stairs. He was an inveterate 
gossip, and could make conversation out of trifles as easily as if 
he had been his own sister. 

“ Uncle asked him for his arm, by Jove?” he said; “ a thing he 
never did to me. And then there was poor old Sterling going on 
anyhow. I chaffed young Barry about having the evil eye; 
but he is an awfully serious fellow' for his age, and did not see 
it. Sterling asked me his name, and where he came from, and 
whether he reminded me of some one, the poor old lunatic!” 

“ The lunacy is with you, unless he did remind you of some 
one,” said Mrs. St. Derrington. “There is a blank space on 


106 


A SISTERS S SACRIFICE, 


the wall ill the picture gallery, Hillier, and if it were there, 
whose face would you see ?” o 

“ I have not the faintest idea.” 

“ That of the young man now in your uncle’s study ? Look at 
his very name, Gerald Barryl He is the son of your uncle, Val- 
entine Gerald Barry — more, I am sure of it.” 

“By Jove!” said" the guardsmen, compassionately. “Poor 
beggar! And they are making a lawyer of him. Well, I am 
glad uncle has taken a liking to him, and so have I.” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

STEANGE FRIENDS. 

The guardsman was quite serious in that expression of sym- 
pathy for the young man whom his aunt chose to assume was 
the son of Lord Farnbourne's dead brother. Not twice the worth 
of such an heritage as the old peer had to leave would have 
reconciled Hillier St. Derrington to a taint upon his birth. 

“ Poor beggar,” he repeated, “ I thought there was some breed 
in him, but I did not think it came in that way. If I were in 
his place 1 would rather be a Smith, or Brown, or a Muggins 
even, so that I could call it my own, though how a man can 
exist with the name of Muggins fastened to him for the term of 
his natural life, and not have an insane desire to revile the 
graves of his ancestors, is a thing that goes quite beyond me. 
But what put the idea into your head, aunt?” 

“ The resemblance, the name, and Lord Farnbourne's treat- 
ment of him. Who ever heard of a young man from the law- 
yer’s being invited to the table ? We might almost as well sit 
down with the doctor’s boy, or the milliner’s porter.” 

“ Wrong, my dear aunt. I am quite prepared to say that Mr. 
Barry is a gentleman— a man I would take to my club and in- 
troduce at mess.” 

“You are prepared to say that after an hour with him in the 
billiard- room.” 

“ I should be prepared to give an opinion, one way or the 
other, in much less. We never ring a doubtful coin more than 
once, and though it may stand the test, we are al ways glad to 
change it away at the earliest moment; but Mr. Barry requires 
no test; he is as genuine as the diamonds in the studs he wears. 
Did you notice them V” 

“Ask me if I remember them,” said Mrs. St. Derrington, 
“ and I will tell you yes. They belonged to your uncle Valen- 
tine.” 

“The deuce tliey did! Why he said they were a birthday 
present from Mr. Channing.” 

“ He told the truth, doubtless. Mr. Channing must have re- 
deemed them from some wretched money-lender, and kept 
them for this young man, to be given to him this day — his birth- 
day. Are you blind. Hillier?” 

“No— not very, I don’t even require an eye-glass, though I 
wear one,” 


107 


- A -SISTER^S- SACRIFICE. 

1 really think you wish to drive me mad, Hillier. Cannot 
you see that there is a motive and a meaning in all thfs? You 
cannot recollect, as 1 do, what took place on the separation of 
Valentine and his wife.” 

“ Considering that I was then nine or ten years of age, I was 
not likely to be deeply interested in it, but I have always been 
taught to believe that he was an unmitigated ruffian.” 

“He was all the world said of him and more, but none the 
less he was always Lord Anthony’s favorite.” 

“ Come, aunt, now, his favorite! and yet it was he who had 
Uncle Val’s picture taken from the gallery.” 

“ Because he could not bear the pain of seeing it, but that 
picture is kept by Anthony himself, and looked at many a time 
T am sure, and I want you to recollect that there was no legal 
separation, nothing but a document drawn up by Mr. Channing, 
and agreed to by your uncle’s wife. Under threat of a divorce, 
she made Mr. Channing, an old sweetheart of hers, the guardian 
of her child, who is, I am sure, the young man now with Lord 
Anthony in the study. Anthony himself always defended her; 
the first and final quarrel he had with his brother was on her 
account. London rang with the story at the time.” 

“ Uncle Val took good care that London should ring with it,” 
the guardsman observed, “ and it seems to me that London 
would be kept on the ring day and night if every fellow’ behaved 
as he did— in fact w e should never be able to sleep, and there is 
no doubt the poor little woman was driven to do what she did.” 

“Your uncle Anthony to this day considers her ill-used and 
innocent. He says she was simply indiscreet, as a neglected 
wife is apt to be, and that her folly began and ended in her sen- 
timental flirtation with a Mr. Astley or Ashley, the man he nearly 
killed. They do say he died from the effects of your uncle’s 
violence — his brutality.” 

“I have heard of that,” said Hillier. “The coffee-room of 
the Guardsmen’s Club is, begging your pardon, aunt, worse 
than an old lady’s tea party for second-hand scandal, and there 
are still some ancient fogies who can recollect the affair, and are 
good enough to tell me all about it once a fortnight or so. The 
time and place w’ere badly chosen I admit; but for the rest, I do 
not see the brutality. The man who establishes that kind of 
sentimental flirtation with a inarried woman must know that 
he is compromising her. It is not for me to say whether she was 
guilty or not; but she might as well have been, as far as her po- 
sition in society was concerned. In similar case, I should have 
done as he did, choosing, of course, a different time and place 
— that is, if I had let things go so far.” 

“ Then you think she went too far?” 

“ I don’t know. Some w’omen are such fools; but if a wife 
of mine had gone so far, I w’ould have had or tried for a di- 
vorce, and that is what she ought to have insisted upon, if only 
for the boy’s sake; it is what I should have expected of my 
mother. If things are as you say, I think they are in a most 
unsatisfactory condition.” 

“ I am glad you begin to think at last,” Mrs. St. Derrington 


108 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


said. “ If I could only see you with a little energy, 1 should 
not care. In what sense do you consider the position of things 
unsatisfactory ?” 

“To begin with, a document of that kind, though drawn up 
by a solicitor and agreed to by the mother, might easily be con- 
tested by the son. He could plead that it was extorted by a 
threat, and I am certain six judges out of a dozen would set it 
aside or suggest a compromise. For instance, if Uncle Anthony 
left the place to me as next of kin, this boy, whoever he may 
be, could begin to fight at once.” 

“ He would have to prove his legitimacy.” 

“Pardon me, I am not particularly long-sighted, but even 
without my eye glass I can see that a man like Channing would 
word that document so as not to call the legitimacy in question. 
Mrs Valentine simply agreed to a separation under a threat. 
She could only answer for her child while he was under her con- 
trol. This boy, if living, would be free to act for himself.” 

“He would, if living, be twenty-one to-day, like the young 
man in the study.” 

“But he, even if he be what you think, has not the slightest idea 
that he is anything other than Gerald Barry — Mr. Channing’s 
ward and employe.” 

“ Do not be so sure of that. Depend upon it he is not one to 
rest satisfied with his position — he is too much like his father 
to give way, and in his knowledge of the world, Hillier, and 
strength of character and purpose he is an older man than you 
by very many years.” 

“ Cool that, when I am reckoned to have seen a little.” 

“ A very little,” said the aunt. “ As Anthony said of you, you 
had a private tutor till you were fourteen, then you went to a 
public school, and then to the university. You traveled a year 
or two on the continent, and when you returned, your commis- 
sion and your military tailor were waiting for you. For the rest, 
still speaking as Anthony did, you have had the feeble and 
monstrous dissipation common to your set. You have been to 
Fpsom and Newmarket, and you are well acquainted with the 
part of London which is comprised within a half-mile circle, 
taking the Haymarket as its center.” 

“ On my word, aunt, I am much obliged to you.” 

“ You must thank your uncle— I am simply repeating him, yet 
I cannot think you are so intensely obtuse, as to let this lawyer- 
bred boy take your place.” 

“ There is no fear of that,” the guardsman said. “ I have been 
always taught to look upon myself as his heir, and he would 
not put me aside for one upon whose parentage there must be a 
doubt forever, even admitting that you are right as to his 
identity. I can quite see uncle's motive. He wants to see what 
the young fellow is like, and if he thinks him worthy, uncle will 
give him a thousand or two a year, and I shall have a thousand 
or two loss, and if uncle didn’t, I would. No, aunt, there’s noth- 
ing to fear; and as I have said, I pity the poor beggar from ray 
heart. He was badly used by both his parents, and if he were 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 100 

declared Lord Farnbourne to morrow the world would accept 
him^ with a reservation.” 

“ But it would accept him.” 

“Let it,” said the guardsman, rising. “I am willing to ac- 
cept him as ho is without inquiry into his pedigree. That sort 
of thing is done and understood, thanks to the royal example of 
a noble duke whose title is the name of a town celebrated for 
its university and its sausages. On horseback he is sylph-like, 
and on foot he wears a chronic umbrella. As a soldier he is 
supposed to beat any of his own rank into Fitz. I heard tliat 
said at ‘ Liramer’s,’ and people laughed, so I suppose there is a 
joke in it somewhere. Do you mind a game of billiards, 
Helen ?” 

“ Helen will join you presently,” Mrs. St. Derrington said, 
and the girl who had half-risen resumed her seat. 

She had not, amongst her fashionable accomplishments, been 
taught to forget that obedience continues to be a duty even 
when it has ceased to be a pleasure. 

“ Some small conspiracy,” Hillier observed. “I believe you 
think the whole of creation is engaged in a plot for the destruc- 
tion of your pet scheme, aunt.” 

“ If I have to look after the family interest,” said the lady, 
“ the fault is not mine.” 

“ Ah, you mean that it is mine; but I do not care for the dead 
man’s shoe business. ‘ Che sara sara,' you know, and ‘ to him 
who sitteth down and waiteth, all things shall come!’ ” 

“ And pass him by,” finished Ins aunt. “ I tell you, Hillier, 
you are risking your claim, and not your own alone.” 

“ You enlighten me. I did not know I had a partner. Who 
is it ?” 

Before Mrs. St. Derrington could reply, a warning gesture 
from Helen restrained her, but the guardsman saw it. 

“ You are risking your claim,” the elder lady said. “ You do 
not evince the slightest interest in your uncle’s pursuits; you 
have not a word to say on any subject he mentions; you make 
irreverent remarks about the picture-gallery; you speak of gene- 
alogy, his favorite hobby, with derision; and when be first took 
you into his museum, and asked you what you thought you saw 
before you, you could think of nothing better than to say there 
must be quite enough to fill a couple of railway trucks.” 

Well, so there is; and he thought I had said a good thing, 
for he laughed and said it was the most original he had heard.” 

“ if you knew what else he thought,” said his aunt, with sup- 
pressed contempt and anger, “you would not be quite so sure 
of having either his collection or his money.” 

“ And, my dear aunt, if my having his collection and his 
money depends upon my affecting an interest in things I do not 
understand or care fori he is welcome to leave the one to the 
National Gallerv or the Bloomsbury Museum, and the other to an 
asylum for ascetic young widows. I might begin the deception, 
but he would see through me in less than a week. I did try once, 
but he gave me up when I told him I thought a protoplasm was. 
a kind of plaster for the gout, and argued the point with him 


110 


A SISTER^S SACnmCE, 


that the paleozoic had something to do with fossilolog^^. He 
closed the cabinet and gave me a treatise on Darwin’s theory; 
and to this day I never knew what he meant, for I could see 
nothing in the book that touched upon the matter.” 

“ The man is hopeless,” Mrs. St. Derrington said, as the guards- 
man sauntered out; “and whether this is affectation or habit or 
nature with him, he is equally a fool. Can you do nothing with 
liim ?” 

“If you leave him to me, mamma, I can; but he is so un- 
worldly and good-hearted, that what he calls your schemes only 
irritate him.” 

“And if he lost everything, as he will, would you care for 
him the same?” 

“ You know I always cared for him.” 

“ But, Helen, should he throw away his position here, risk 
that which is rightfully his, by his blind folly, let this” — she 
paused only in time to check the coarse and cruel word— “ this 
nameless, insolent boy supplant him, you must never think of 
him. I would rather see you married to this outcast son of a 
ruffian father and a mother who admitted her disgrace.” 

“ When the time comes, mamma, we will speak of this,” said 
Helen, quietly, “but till I know that Hillier does not care for 
me I shall not give a single thought to another, and if I had no 
Hillier, this Mr. Barry would be the last man on earth.” 

“Why?” 

I cannot say, but when I saw him first I felt that sense we 
liave when we meet people we are destined to dislike and be 
afraid of. I can quite believe he is a gentleman. He could be 
like his father, not so wicked, but as cruel — in a different way, 
I shall be glad when he is gone.” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

SETTING HIS HOUSE IN ORDER. 

Gerald had not been twenty-four hours in the house before 
he made himself at home, and mentally determined who were 
his friends. After that first evening there was a marked 
change in Mrs. St. Derrington’s manner. She condescended to 
address an occasional remark to him, and was good enough to 
listen when he replied. Her daughter, too, was a little more 
gracious, but in the same way; yet he knew that when he tried 
he could interest her more than she cared to show. 

Hillier had evidently conceived a liking for him, and he wanted 
to have more of his company. Anything in the shape of a man 
was a relief to the guardsman, who could have smoked and 
strolled and played billiards for sixteen hours of the day and 
night. He had slept on what his aunt had said, and thought it 
not particularly unlikely, but he never for a moment looked 
upon Gerald as a possible rival. On the contrary he treated him 
with a more marked and delicate courtesy, and did not grudge 
him the thousand or two he had an idea Lord Farnbourne would 
leave him out of justice. It was hard, Hillier said to himself. 


A STSTEn^S SACRIFICE, 


111 


that a fellow should have the looks and breeding and culture of a 
gentleman, and yet have no right to any name he might choose 
to bear, because his father was a ruffian and his mother had by 
her indiscretion forfeited her place. 

“That is what Uncle Anthony has him here for,” thought 
Hillier, “ just to see what he is like and then make a fair pro- 
vision for him, and it is only right after all, for Barry’s case 
might have been mine. But as for treating him as if he were 
Uncle Val’s legitimate son, it is quite out of the question. It 
would be putting a premium on that kind of thing, just as let- 
ting a divorcee marry again is giving her a direct incentive to 
dishonor her husband for the sake of getting her liberty.” 

Gerald had not much time to give his friend, the captain, not 
that Lord Farnbourne was a hard taskmaster. 

“Never work when you are tired,” he said to Gerald, “we 
have plenty of time, yet I want to set my house in order; for the 
day cometh when no man shall work,” he added, musingly, 
“ and how shall we render an account for what we have left 
undone? I am old, Mr. Barry.” 

This was on the second evening when they were together, and 
Gerald had worked well through the day. He thanked the 
training he had gone through in Mr. Channing’s office, for the 
facility with which he could master the details and complica- 
tions he had before him here. 

“ If we are to count by years, my lord,” said Gerald, “ you are 
old, but we do not live by the law of nature always, and your 
life may be as long as mine.” 

‘ ‘ And I am nearly seventy. ” 

“ With your habits of repose and your temperate diet, there 
is no reason why you should not be ninety.” 

“ My physician would not tell you so.” Lord Farnbourne said. 
“My habits of repose are essential to my health; my diet is a 
matter of necessity. A single glass of wine, taken "in excess, 
or an ounce of food extra beyond my usual quantity might be 
fatal to me, and a fall would kill me— that was the verdict I had 
many years ago. Damocles himself never lived under a more 
slender guaranty; and I, as he did, have looked up and seen the 
sword above my head.” 

“And having seen it, you can take care that it does not fall,” 
said Gerald, hoping to cheer him from what he thought a mor- 
bid mood. “I suppose no man, no matter what his age, ever 
set his house in order, arranged his goods for distribution, and 
made bis will, without thinking of the end.” 

“ Would you have him put it from his thoughts ?” 

“ISo, but it should not trouble them.” 

“ You are right,” said the old peer. “ I could not have an- 
swered myself in better terms.” 

He relapsed into silence, only speaking when Gerald had to ask 
some questions concerning the w'ork he was engaged upon. Lord 
Farnbourne had b^en a terrible litigant in his day, and he had 
more than one case pending. The affairs of his own estate were 
extensive enough for any ordinary firm of solicitors; but Mr, 


112 


A SISTERS S SACRIFICE. 

Gbaniiiiig had kept them in admirable orders and he could not 
havechosen a worthier representative than Gerald. : . 

Lord Farn bourne seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in study- 
ing his young assistant — asking him unexpected questions in the 
middle of his work, so that he should not have a moment's prep- 
aration for reply; and though Gerald did not know it, the same 
questions were put to him under different shapes many a time. 
The old nobleman elicited a curious fact by doing this. The replj' 
was invariably the same in substance, but differed in shape as 
the questions did. 

The third day had nearly ended before he fulfilled his promise 
and showed Gerald the treasures of his museum. By this time 
Gerald had grown accustomed to giving Lord Farn bourne his 
arm. He did so now. 

“ When it tires you,” he said, “ tell me, and I will take a seat; 
but you will want a guide.” 

He opened the door with a key he carried in his pocket, and 
they went a few paces into the room. It was very large, lofty, 
and almost square, and lighted by a glass dome' in the roof. 
There was very little order in the arrangement, but Gerald could 
see that here were gathered some of the choicest treasures the 
virtuosos’ world contained. He stood quite silent, taking in the 
strange scene slowly. 

“^What do you think,” Lord Farnbourne asked, “of what you 
see before you ?” 

“I did not think, my lord, such a collection existed except in 
a public institution.' This must have been the work of many 
years and many hands, but under the direction of one brain. 
The four corners of the world, and every age, tell their story 
here.'’ 

“ Would there, do you think,” his lordship said, with dry and 
angry sarcasm, “be enough here to fill two railway trucks?” 

“ From^ any one but you the suggestion would be vandalism,, 
and you 'can jest because the collection is your own. For my 
own part ” 

Well, say what you were going to say, young man. So far 
I have found you honest and ready to speak your mind. If you 
offend me it does not matter. I am used to strange opinions 
here.” 

“Then 1 was going to say that if the collection were mine, I 
should no more think of making it a jest than I should think of 
speaking of my own wife’s beauty to a stranger.” 

“ I went to Rome for that,” Lord Farnbourne said, pointing 
to a small bronze, and taking no notice of Gerald’s reply. “ It 
cost me a special journey and much anxiety. This is a frag- 
ment by Thorwaldsen. I almost stole it wdien I was in Den- 
mark. You might at first sight take it for a wooden doll, and 
finished carelessly at that.” 

“At first sight, yes,” said Gerald; “but there is the mark of 
genius here. This would be one of the artistic toys at wliich he 
helped his father in his earlier days, wmrking when his father 
rested or slept from weariness.” 

“ Who has told you of him ?” 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE, 


113 


“I thought all the world knew the story of Bertel Jasthalk 
Thorwaldsen,” said Gerald; “and to have a fragment of his 
own work in my hand is enough to recall it. What a grand 
chapter it is in the history of genius, that poor lad working his 
w^ay till he became, the friend of kings.” 

They spent two or three hours in the museum, and then did 
not go far. It was here that Gerald found the advantage of 
good reading and a retentive memory; he needed but a reminder. 
The sight of an object or the mention of a name, and his mem- 
ory proved a most faithful friend. 

“You have made this a study,” Lord Farnbourne said, “for 
though a man maybe a born antiquarian and collector, he does 
not develop the faculty at your age — how is it ?” 

“ 1 scarcely know; but there is no part of London I have left 
unexplored, if only to see the smallest case or a single speci- 
men. It grew upon me, for I did not care for it at first. I could 
spend many days here.” 

“ I have for a long time wanted some one to help me in ar- 
ranging my collection.” said Lord Farnbourne. “1 have a little 
store-house as yet unclassified, and some things of disputed 
origin. You will help me, Gerald ?” 

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” said Gerald, 
startled for the moment by the use of his Christian name. 

“ You see, since I am lame, I tire soon,” the old man went on, 
“ and there is no one in the house I should care to ask for as- 
sistance. The arranging and classifying of things that would 
fill two railway trucks, require something more than a capac- 
ity for playing billiards and shooting birds. What would you 
think of a man who, standing at the door as you did when we 
first came in, said such a thing?” 

“ That he lacked tlie faculty of appreciation, and I should be 
sorry for him because he must lose so much- Reverence for art. 
my lord, is like love of the beautiful, an instinct. Mine is a 
kind of Pagan reverence, for it existed long before I had knowl- 
edge, and I would rather have a man openly confess his igno- 
rance or indifference than pick up a few catch phrases and pre- 
tend to be a connoisseur.” 

“ We must send to Channing, and see how much of your time 
he can give me,” said his lordship, wuth his manner of not heed- 
ing what had been said. “ There is a winter’s work for you here, 
that is, taking your own consent as granted.’* 

“ VvTth some few intervals for myself, my lord,” said Gerald, 
thinking of Jeannette, “and Mr. Channing’s approval, it is a 
work I should delight in.” 

The old peer patted the arm on which his hand rested. 

“ That is right. We shall be excellent friends. Yet this must 
be a dull place after London.” 

“London is always London,” Gerald said; “ but here a man 
can live in other worlds and other ages. There is no such at- 
traction for me in London as I can find within this house.” 


114 


- A SISTEWS^ SACRIFICE. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

A MORAL OBLIGATION. 

But for his anxiety to be with Jeannette, Gerald could have 
been very happy where he was. He felt himself quite at home 
in the strange old nobleman’s fine mansion. The large rooms, 
handsome furniture, and the respectful attention of well-trained 
servants, seemed natural to him; and, more than all, he had a 
curious sympathy — properly defined, he would have called it af- 
fection — for Lord Farnbourne. 

There was a fascination, too, in the work he was engaged 
upon; but he would not consent to transfer his services from 
Mr. Cbanning to the master of Ashford Lynn till-^he had the 
Lincoln’s Inn solicitor’s consent; and, with his usual steadiness 
of purpose, he adhered to his resolution that, even should that 
consent be given, he must have some intervals of time entirely 
for himself. 

On this point he had a conversation with Lord Farnbourne 
during one of the evenings they were in the habit of spending 
together now. He gave part of his days to Hillier St. Herring- 
ton, and considerably lessened that gentleman’s opinion of his 
own power with the cue, but his evenings in the museum and 
the library were never disturbed. 

“ If this business you have in London is not very important,” 
Lord Farnbourne said, “ could you not defer it for a week or 
two? I think it would be a pity to break in upon our work, 
now that we have it so well advanced.” 

“ We shall have finished one section within two days,” Gerald 
said, “ and then I will go for a time.” 

“ Must you go ?” 

“ Not in the sense of being compelled.” 

“ Are you, apart from Mr. Channing, a free agent?” 

“Entirely, my lord. But there may be a moral obligation 
stronger than any engagement. The word of a man of honor 
should always be better than his bond; and even when his word 
has not been given, he may by his conduct have incurred an ob- 
ligation which he should fulfill as strictly.” 

“That would depend on the construction put upon it,” said 
his lordship. “ Let me suppose a case. Say that I, by my gen- 
eral conduct to an individual, have let him foster a self- conceived 
belief that I intend to leave him a large legacy or make him my 
heir, having myself no intention of the kind?” 

“I should say you had behaved very unwisely; and if you 
knew what he thought, you should undeceive him at once*, or 
act as he expected you would .” 

“ But if I did not care to undeceive him, or act as he expected, 
you could not surely say I was in the wrong?” 

“ Most certainly I should. I should say you had done and 
were doing him a deliberate injustice.” 

“ Then if you had, however innocently, incurred what you 
term a moral obligation, you would fulfilfit?” 


115 


- A SISTEii'S ^SACniFICE, 

“I would, my lord. But no man can remain long in igno- 
rance of what he has done, no matter how innocently; and if it 
should be too late to set the niiscohception right, it would be 
unjust of him to let tlie other be the sufferer.” 

“ This, I presume, is Mr. Channing’s teaching.” 

“ Mr. Channing’s opinion on such things is identical with 
mine, but I have had no teaching from him. I am indebted to 
him for much, but my moral ethics are my own.” 

“ You have told me more than once, Gerald, I use the name 
by habit now, because it is familiar to me, that you have no 
relatives ?” 

“ None to my knowledge. You are touching now, my lord, 
upon a subject on which I cannot speak without bitterness.” 

“Then pardon me; but a remark you made when we were 
discussing genealog}" the other evening, and you said: ‘ If J had 
an ancestry,’ — I noticed the w^ords at the time, and I have 
thought of them since.” 

“ My lord, I see your motive,” said Gerald, quietly, and with 
a burning cheek; “ you wish me to become for some time an 
inmate of your house. I have sat at your table, and on equal 
terms with your kindred.” 

“ On equal terms,” Lord Farnbourne said, “ with me.” 

“And you would like to know the name and pedigree of the 
man you have so honored, and I can tell you in so many words. 
I have no pedigree; I do not know my name.” 

“ You interest me greatly, yet since the subject pains you I 
will ask you no more, though I did think that, in spite of our 
short acquaintance, you would look upon me as one whose 
motive in what he asked of you would never be an idle or an 
unkind one; for the rest, your position in my house would 
never be affected by your name or pedigree. Like yourself I 
believe in a natural aristocracy; titles are to me mere empty 
symbols. Do you think the nobles of the old French regime 
would recognize those who took their rank from the Corsican 
adventurer who made himself Napoleon the First; or I myself 
accept as my equal, some citizen, or soldier, or court favorite 
whose patent of nobility does not go beyond the days of the 
Elector of Hanover ? You have said to me, and I agree with you, 
that royalty itself is the accident of a revolution or an abdication. 
The men who have left the deepest mark in history were of 
simple pedigree and wore no titles. There are no names that 
live so well or will last so long as those of Cromwell and Wash- 
ington. Would not a title have degraded them, just as it would 
have been an insult to the genius of Shakespere ? And who, 
when reading ‘ Childe Harold,’ ever thinks of its author except 
as Byron simply ?” 

“ Yet, my lord, you are proud of your title.” 

“ It came to me unsullied from my father,” said the old peer, 
with gentle dignity; “to him, from his the same, and if he, on 
whom T bestow it, will use it as well as I have done, my spirit 
will rest tranquilly.” 

“ Then the title does not become extinct with you, my lord,” 


116 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 

Gerald said, in some surprise. “ You have the power to leave 
it to your nephew?” 

“Yes.” 

“It must be by some curious privilege then. Such as that 
which gives the family the right to stand with covered head in 
the presence of royalty. I do not know of another instance in 
which a title can go to a nephew on the maternal side.” 

“ Perhaps there is not one; but ours is a singular history, Ger- 
aid. Sir Bernard Burke would have to live another lifetime be- 
fore he could complete the work he is engaged upon. My only 
hope is that mv successor will do no worse than I have done, 
and as much better as he can. You like my nephew— St. Der- 
rington ?” 

“Very much.” 

“ For his genius, or his virtues, or both?” 

“ For his generous instincts and free, good nature, my lord. 
Genius is a gift that a mere soldier does not require, and if his 
virtues are of the passive order I should say there is no man of 
his kind who has fewer vices. So far as I have seen him, I 
should say he is a true gentleman, one who would keep your 
name as unsullied as you took it froni your father. Ah, my 
lord, if I were in his place, I would give all that it is iu your 
power to bestow upon him if I could sa.y that my father bad left 
an unsullied name.” 

“ How do you know he did not?” 

“ From Mr. Channing,” said Gerald, and now that he had 
begun he went on, without x>ower to keep back a word. He 
told Lord Farubourne everything the solicitor had related to 
him. So deeply absorbed was he in his own recital that he 
did not notice how strangely the old peer was affected. 

“ Your father appears to have behaved with very little dis- 
crimination,” he said, “ though I cannot say he was entirely un- 
provoked. But your mother, Gerald! I am sorry we must ad- 
mit that her conduct was reprehensible.” 

“ Sometimes when I think of myself I could say so,” said Ger- 
ald; “ but when I think of her, I can only remember what she 
was to me and how we loved each other.” 

“ And Mr. Channing has advised you to wait, to take no step 
toward proving your identity, but bear patiently the uncertainty 
of your position ?” 

“ That is the advice he gives me always.” 

“And you are satisfied with it ?” 

“ No; but what can I do ? If I begin, even if I had the clew, 
1 must drag the old miserable story to light again, and, as it 
were, disturb my mother’s grave. I, her own sou, and for the 
sake of a name he denied me. No, my lord, 1 love her memory 
too well, and no testimony I might evoke w’ould add to my 
faith in her innocence or shake it. The name I bear shall be 
the one I make, and the friends I love shall choose me for myself. 
I would not, even were I certain tliat the result would place me 
here, your equal in rank and wealth, and more than all, in birth, 
move one step that might reawaken the sin, the cruel sin that 
killed her.” 


A smmR^s sAOMriCE. in 

- “ Yet, in vouf father’s case, you might have acted as he 
did.” 

“ Never. I should have thought of our child. I might have 
put her from me, but not publicly as he did, and under such 
brutal conditions. I do not blame him utterly, and I cannot 
say my mother was free from blame, but the evil begun with 
him; he neglected her. Had he been at his place, the senti- 
mental fool w’ho threw the cloud upon her reputation would 
have been kept at his proper distance; and had my father 
thought of that, and judged dispassionately, giving himself time 
for reflection, he must have seen that every circumstance, even 
the worst, could easily have been used in her defense and ex- 
tenuation.” 

“He was not a man to judge dispassionately, by what you 
have said of him,” Lord Farnbourne observed. “ English gentle- 
men of the present generation do not resort to violence and 
assist in giving publicity to their own disgrace, I think you 
have chosen a wise line of conduct, Gerald. Let the name you 
wear be the one you make, and have no friends, except those 
who choose you for yourself. If you will let me count myself 
as one of those, I shall be glad,” 

“ My lord,” said Gerard, taking the other's delicate hand, 
“ you ere singularly kind to me.” 

“Singularly kind; one of my eccentricities is to choose my 
own friends, and there is no singularity in choosing one who does 
not measure the value of my collection by the truck-load. As 
for pedigree, you might get along very well without one.” 

“And you think I have done wisely in resolving to take no 
steps ?” 

“In regard to your identity, I am sure of it. Who is there 
that would not respect a son for having such regard for his 
mother’s name? And,” he added, with an impressiveness that 
changed his voice, “ Heaven watches over those, Gerald, who 
wait with patience to have their wrongs righted by the Powers 
above. Your father wronged your mother by his doubt. Had 
he lived to see you now, he would have been proud of you.” 

“ Had he lived till now, it would have been for me not to 
acknowledge him,” said Gerald, sternly. 

“ Do not say that. Had he lived, all things would have been 
different; and even as they are, they might have been worse.” 

Gerald went to his rest that night with a lighter heart for 
having told the old peer his story. He could accept his position 
in the house now, should Mr. Channing sanction it. He wore 
no false colors. Lord Farnbourne took him for himself iu the 
name his mother had given him. He could not have desired a 
greater honor. He went to rest, but he had very little sleep. 
An idea, which had haunted him from the first, troubled him 
now with a persistence he could not escape from. He associated 
Lord Farnbourne’s singular and kindly interest in him with Mr. 
Canning’s injunction, and Hillier St. Derrington’s mention of 
that member of the family whose portrait was absent from the 
wall. 

“ It is well within the possibilities,” he said to himself, that 


118 


A siSTEirs sacrifice: 

the man who so disgraced his name was my father; and if so, 1 
am Lord Farnbourne’s heir-at-law, — the legitimate successor to 
the title and property; but — and it is a terrible but this — my own 
father repudiated me, and my mother, with her own hand, 
signed the document of repudiation; and any one claiming to be 
next-of-kin could contest ray right even were I in possession.” 

Even in his sleep be went on linking these things together, 
but he lost his way every now and then, and in the morning he 
rebuked himself for letting bis fancy drift into the lealms of 
fiction, and cause him to so misconstrue Lord Farnboiirne’s 
kindly courtesy. 

“It is as if I were writing a story or supposing a case, with 
myself for the hero,” he thought, “and I let my vanity run 
away with me because some partial friends and a girl who loves 
me, tell me that I have a distinguished bearing and therefore 
must be something more than I seem. Why any cavalry troop 
could produce a dozen men better than myself in education and 
learning, and the stage swarms with walking gentlemen who 
might by their appearance be the sons of princes. Lord Farn- 
bourne has taken a fancy tome on account of my knowing a 
little more than most men of my age, about old coins, bronzes, 
and bits of antiquity in general; for the rest I am, if not a fool, 
a dreamer.” 

Yet the thought haunted him, but he told himself that even if, 
by the wildest possibility, it was realized, he could never hold 
that name and title as his own, not even if it were contested and 
the law’ decided in his favor; for his father repudiated him. and 
his mother with her own hand had signed away his birthright. 

“ And if there were no other reason,” he thought, “ w-hat could 
1 do with Jeannette — my little Jeannette? Let me be content 
with my position and my love and seek no further.” 

Then it came to him in another shape. If he w'ere Lord Farn- 
bourne’s nephew and, but for that unhappy difference between 
his parents, had succeeded to the estates in the usual way, what 
would his friends say to Jeannette? She was pretty; beautiful, 
he would have said; clever, was w’ell educated, and full of lov- 
ing, winning sweetness; but he could not hide the truth, or 
disguise it, she lacked that nameless something which only high 
bu'th can give, that which he saw in Helen St. Derrington. He 
could fancy that even in her cradle she must have been a pretty 
baby — nothing more, 

“ But you would never be so womanly as my Jeannette,” he 
said to himself, “ you may be anything you please, Miss Der- 
rington, anything that stands for grace and dignity and beauty, 
as a statue is beautiful — but I could never picture you as a wife 
or mother, as companion to your husband or guardian of his 
house; you belong to the wo Id and you would always belong to 
it, and I would not have you if I w’ere free to-morrow.” 

When he left Ashford Lynn, two days later, that was his last 
thought. She stood at the long window fronting the lawn, not 
to look at him, but at her cousin Hiilier, The captain himself 
drove Gerald to the station, 

“And I say, Barry,” he said, plaintively, “do come back as 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


119 


soon as you can. Don’t be more than a week. Not that 1 have 
much of your company, but it is a relief from the women.” 

“ If you can speak so of your cousin,” Gerald said, “ I am sorry 
for you. There is a lady who loves you beyond your worth.” 

“Yes,” draw’led the guardsman; “ but a fellow’s cousin, you 
know. Knew her ever since she could toddle. Most absurd to 
think of her in any other way. It oughtn’t to be allowed. If 
every fellow was expected to marry his cousin, there would be 
an end to the nicest friendship in the world. Think if every 
fellow wanted to marry his cousin, and there were a lot of fel- 
lows and only one girl.' Why, the family would be turned upside 
down.” 

“ It vs’ould be as w’ell — pardon me for the suggestion— if you 
made her and Mrs. St. Derrington acquainted with your senti- 
ments,” said Gerald, gravely. “ I was speaking to Lord Farn- 
bourne only the other day on the subject of moral obligations, 
and you are certainly incurring one.” 

“You don’t mean to say ” 

“ I do mean to say that your cousinly affection has w’on more 
than a cousinly love; and unless you wish to have to reproach 
yourself with giving her the heartache, you will either undeceive 
her or quietly accept your position.” 

He shook hands warmly with the guardsman, and entered his 
train, leaving Hillier to look after him in a startled kind of slow 
amazement, that found expression at last in the words — 

“ By Jove! w’hat a fellow he is, to be sure.” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

OF ALL MEN ELSE. 

The time that had gone so pleasantly with Gerald at Ashford 
Lynn had seemed very long to his young wife, in spite of his 
letters, though he wrote to her every day. She kept up a pre- 
tense of going to her pupils as usual, but it vvas rather as a vis- 
itor to those where she was always welcome. 

It w’as nothing strange to them in the house that she used the 
drawing-room as freely as ever. That she had always done when 
they were unlet, or when they w’ere let and the rightful occu- 
pants were out; but now it s^'emed to the honest cabinet-maker 
that she took posses.sion of them in a very different way. She 
took her meals there, and his wife w'aited upon her as if she paid 
the rent, to use his own expression. 

“’Taint nothing to do with me, mind.” he said one day at din- 
ner time.” The little landlady was about to take up a dainty lit- 
tle repast, very different from the trifle in the way of chop or 
cutlet he had been accustomed to see: “ but I don’t quite seem 
to make it out. Miss Daniel isn’t doing any better than she 
were, but .she seems to live differently somehow; and I don’t 
see how the money runs to it.” 

“ Perhaps she gets better pay,” said Mrs. Hormsby, carefully 
wdping the plates, “an'd perhaps, Christopher, it is no business 
ofvours,” 


120 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


“ No; t don’t eav it be,” said the pacific Christopher, with a 
well-guarded dread of domestic discomfort; “ but a man can’t 
help seeing what go on in bis own house. Why, she have a let- 
ter nearly every day from Master Gerald 

“ How do you know ?” 

“ ’Cos I see ’em in the letter-box,” said Chris, triumphantly. 
“ Same time always, first post every morning, and I know his 
writing as well as I do my own.” 

“ Well, if you must know, they are engaged,” said his wife, 
taking the shortest way out of the difficulty; “ but we don’t want 
to tell everybody. I should have told you before, but you are 
such a one to talk to your shopmates, or over the bar round the 
corner on Saturday nights, when you get a little too much 
beer.” 

“ I never say nothing when I am told not to say,” said Chris 
with the solemn dignity of an injured workingman, “and if 
you say it’s right, and you are satistied, it’s good enough for 
me, and when they do marry, they shall have the best bit of my 
own workmanship I can do, and that’s not saying a little.” 

“Just you keep your tongue still, that's all I want of you,” 
said his pretty little better half. “ And now you know every- 
thing, and the poor girl’s bit of dinner's cold, perhaps you are 
satisfied.” 

“Now I have done it again,” soliloquized this man, who fondly 
believed himself the master of the house; “ and unless I wear 
my boots straight, there won’t be any hot supper for me to- 
night. She's a rum little Tartar, the missus, but Lor’ bless me, 
there isn’t another like her in the world.” 

“ Sometimes I wish there were no men,” the landlady said as 
she went in with the tray, “ don’t you, my dear V” 

Evidently Jeannette did not. She had an open letter in her 
hand, and her eyes were gleaming with joy. 

“He is coming home this evening,” she answered, softly, 
“ and I am not to be out after dark, as if I should ever be out if 
I thought he was comingl But it is dark so early— at very little 
after five, now— and he would not call that evening, would he?” 

“ There's no knowing, dear.” Mrs. Horrnsby saw by the wist- 
ful face how much value was set upon an hour. “Men are so 
strange; they count by the light more than by the hours, like 
the almanacs, but they are very often wrong, both of them. 
And now eat your little bit of dinner, and I will get something 
nice for him, and then 5"ou will have a nice long evening to 
yourselves. There is nothing my Chris and I used to enjoy so 
much as when I had the kitchen to myself and a comfortable fire, 
and a tasty snack put away in the oven for him. Sweetheart- 
ing is sweethearting all the same, all the world over, and it does 
not matter what part of tlie house you are in.” 

Jeannette was accustomed to her landlady’s oddity of speech, 
yet the comparison between “my Chris” and her own Gerald 
jarred upon her. She did try to eat a little, but the letter by the 
side of her plate had most of her attention, not that it was very 
long or loaded with sentiment, ’ 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 


121 


The girl’s own love supplied more tenderness than there was 
in the letter itself. 

“You may expect me to-morrow, some time in the evening,” 
be wrote; “ but you had better not be out after dark. In fact, 
I do not care for you to be out after dark at any time in that 
neighborhood while I am away. I shall stay at home for a 
week, Jeannette; I say at liome because you are there, and it 
seems quite natural to write it so; Until last week I never 
thought of the old place except as my rooms; therein you see 
the difference between a bachelor and— but written words are 
as dangerous as walls that have ears; and if I did not know you 
I should not write as I do; for I do not think, Jeannette, there 
is anything so dishonorable or mean as for a woman to show the 
letters of her lover or her husband to her friends. I am glad 
you are free from these petty trickeries. 

“ I may be home earlier than I have said, but the trains are 
not frequent from here, and I will tell you all about Ashford 
Lynn and the people in it when we are together.” 

"He signed himself simply, “ With love, Gerald,” and this was 
the kind of letter he had written from the first— always a little 
inclined to play the schoolmaster, and fall unconsciously into 
moralizing on his own account. Hillier St. Derrington had 
spoken of him once as an underdone ISocrates, the only good 
thing Hillier St. Derrington had been known to say. 

For a day in January, this one that Gerald had fixed for his 
return was an exceptionally bright example of what the English 
climate could be if it liked. The streets were dry and clean, 
with scarcely a trace left of th<? recent mud and frost. It was 
as though J^ature had sent a few hours of spring in advance, 
with the full intention of taking them back with interest some- 
where about the middle of May. 

Jeannette was at the window nearly the whole of the after- 
noon; it had been her post of observation from morning till the 
time came for drawing the blinds down and closing the curtains; 
ever since Gerald went away, she always had an idea that he 
might run up from Ashford Lynn if only for an hour. 

Her neighbors on the opposite side,— good charitable souls, 
whose lodgers always come with most unexceptionable references 
and pay with the most stringent regularity,— had long since 
settled amongst themselves that the little music teacher over the 
way was not what she used to be before that rich young gentle- 
man came. They had already given him a social position: he 
was the son of a nobleman, he was the adopted child of a mar- 
quis, his mother was a pretty actress more celebrated in the 
photographers’ windows than on the stage, his mother w'as the 
illustrious Princess Doura, just recently divorced from an Aus- 
trian prince. Gerald could have supplied a whole community of 
orphans with parents out of those assigned to him by the lodg- 
ing-house-keeping sisterhood of Calverton Street. 

Miss Daniel stood at the window, quite unconscious of those 
Avho watched her and tore her character into shreds, or de- 
fended her, according to the influence her quiet beauty had 
upon them. Several gentlemen, when they saw her there, ran 


A SXSTERrS SACRIFICE. 


m 

to. their rooms to reaiTanp^e their hair, and put on the afternoon 
coats that best became them; and one well-known orchestral 
musician, witli a fine, dark, expressive face that would have 
been very handsome if judged from the stand-point of a 
chimpanzee, mounted a fez, and admired the sky within full 
view of the balcony. Jeannette saw him and could not refrain 
a smile. That smile delighted him. Jeannette only had an in- 
voluntary reminiscence of an active little monkey, who came 
once a, week and skipped about in front of an organ, holding 
out his miniature fez for coppers. Some of Ler opposite 
neighbors, gifted with that prescience which only a lodging- 
house keeper can possess, were gratified when a carefully-driven 
cab turned the coiner of the main street and stopped at Gerald’s 
address. The figure vanished from the window then, and 
Gerald let himself in with his key. Jeannette met him on the 
landing. When Gerald was with her it seemed as if her girl- 
hood had come back again; these wretched chapters which had 
wearied it were torn out from the book of her life and put 
aside. 

“ You were at the window when 1 came in,” he said. “Did 
you expect me so soon ?” 

“ I have been at the window all day— -I may say all the week. 

I felt like that lady in your favorite play, ‘ Marianna, or the 
Haunted Grange.’ Very* often have I said, as she said, ‘He 
cometh not.’ But I knew you would come.’’ 

“ My darling. But do not play at being the Lady of the 
Grange again, please. Pimlico, ever since it has become South 
Belgravia, is not exactly the place where you can stand at the 
window for any length of time without attracting unpleasant 
and objectionable notice. When I tell you I am coming you 
may consider me here.” 

He kissed her again, to take away the shadow that fell upon 
lier face at his words, gently as they were spoken. 

“And what has my pet done with herself all this long time?” 
he asked. 

“Bead a great deal, and played almost incessantly.” 

“Without an audience, I hope?” 

“ You were my audience, Gerald. I almost know ‘ Fidelia’ by 
heart. T w'onder that, so fond of music as I am, I did not learn 
to care for our great composers before.” 

“ You know them, as most girls do, by the bits that are made 
p^opular by the music-sellers; we will go further back in time. 
There were composers before Mozart, just as there were Herons 
before that ancient gentleman whose name we hear so frequently 
quoted. Have you been out anywhere?” 

“To my pupils only.” 

“We vfill see what is to be done this evening, though I am 
afraid our choice is somewhat restricted. We have the panto- 
mime, it is true, and there is the Hay market, where w’e are 
always certain of a good comedy well played, and the Adel-' 
phi ” 

Jeannette gave a little shudder. 

“ They use fire-arms there in nearly every piece, and I am like 


12B 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 

a poor girl I used to know; she could not stand a ‘tragery,’ ’cos 
it made her cry so, and I have no wish to cry this evening, 
Gerald.” 

“You shall never cry, my pet, unless it is for joy, or with it. 
Make your own choice. Are you such a baby still that you 
would like what the British public will persist in calling a panto- 
mime ?” 

“ Drury Lane,” she whispered. 

“You baby. Very well. I will secure a brougham, then 
jump into a hansom, and take a box.” 

“Not without me, dear.” 

“ If you are inclined for a ride in an open cab on a winters 
day come, my pet, by all means, and that reminds me that you 
want something w’armer than you are wearing at present, and 
there is a fur jacket in the Buckingham Palace Road which will 
just suit you.” 

“But, darling, wmuld it be wise for me to wear anything so 
expensive — what would people think?” 

He turned upon her rather gravely. 

“ Whatever they please, Jeannette; but if they say anything 
you can refer them to me, and my answer, if not satisfactory, 
would be convincing. Has any one been for me?” 

“ Mr. Lewis called; I think he w^as rather tipsy, for when I 
saw him he seemed to have forgotten what he had i^ome for, 
but he said he wanted to see you particularly, and if I happened 
to be writing to you I was to ask you to run up and see him on 
the quiet.” 

“ Why should he think you would be wanting to me ?” Gerald 
said with a frown. “ He had no right to call here in my ab- 
sence. He had nothing to say to me that would not keep. Now 
dress yourself, my pet, and I will get that jacket for you. I can 
take your figure in my eye and I know’ it will fit.” 

He went and ordered a brougham for the evening, and taking 
a hansom from the stand adjacent, drove to the Buckingham 
Palace Road, where he selected the jacket he thought would 
suit Jeannette. It never struck him that in doing this himself, 
he was depriving her of one of the dearest delights knowm to 
the feminine heart. Even the polite and ladylike young gentle- 
man who waited upon him seemed to resent the rapidity wdth 
w^hich he chose what he wanted and paid for it. 

“ Thanks,” Gerald said, “ that is the one I want; you need not 
show me any more; put it in a box and I will take it with me; 
should it not fit the lady she herself will bring it back.” 

He paid the modest price asked for it — thirty-seven guineas — 
and w’^ent away with his purchase, leaving the ladies at the 
counter to think what a hateful man he must be. With thirty- 
seven guineas ready money to spend, they could, or any one of 
them, have gone all round London for a week, and done an 
hour’s shopping everywhere. 

The jacket was a success, and Jeannette put it on with much 
gratitude for his thoughtful love and made no demur at the 
indiscretion; for herself she w^as too unselfish to care. She 
knew that to dress like this while she was unacknowledged was 


m 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE, 


to place herself open to misconstruction, but she wanted him, 
for his own sake, to keep to the letter of his bond, and not place 
her in such a position that he would be obliged to tell the truth 
before the time came. 

When they were going through Bow Street, Jeannette nest- 
ling closely to him, with his arm round her waist, he saw Mr. 
Robert Courtney Lewis on the pavement. Tipsiness was cer- 
tainly his normal condition, but at present he had only reached 
the superlatively polite stage. 

He was talking to a man, cloaked and furred beyond the ne- 
cessities of an English winter even at its bitterest, and this man, 
at sight of Jeannette, gave a start thet, in spite of his melo- 
dramatic character, was genuine. Gerald replied somewhat 
distantly to Mr. Courtney’s bow, and the cab went on. 

“Did you see that fool?” he said to Jeannette. “ the fellow 
who was nothing but cloak and glossy hat and black whisker- 
marks, if I except the rouge?” 

“ Yes,” Jeannette said. “ Do you know him ?” 

“ Not I. He is some country actor more likely to make a 
sensation in the street than on the stage. Those fellows from 
the provinces never will begin to learn that they lower their 
profession and insult the gentlemen of the London stage by 
walking the streets in that mountebank fashion.” 

All that *he said was true, but in the man he spoke of with 
such contempt, Jeannette had recognized the destroyer of her 
girlhood, the man who, whatever name he might bear now, was 
to her the handsome gymnast— Hector de Mortimar, 

CHAPTER XXVIl. 

INJURED DIGNITY. 

The fear that this man might come back some day had al- 
ways haunted Jeannette. It was in his nature to keep his exist- 
ence unknown if, by doing so, he could at his own time inflict 
pain or punishment on any one who thought him dead. 

He saw Jeannette, and knew her in a moment. He saw, too, 
that she had recognized him, and it pleased him to tliink she 
might soon be in his power once more. He had never forgiven 
her for leaving him, though he would not have hesitated to 
leave her at any time when he grew tired of her, or her beauty 
ceased to have a value in the theatrical market. 

“ I see you know the lady in that cab,” he said. “You bowed 
to her.” 

“ That lady ?” said Lewis. “ Yes. The gentleman with her is 
in our office, and I did not know he had returned.” 

“ I think I know her too,” tlie gymnast said, slowly. “If I 
am not mistaken, I had the honor of calling her my wife some 
years ago, when I was last in England; and she played me such 
a trick as no other girl or woman ever tried, and l have been 
wondering ever since where she was and what she was doing. 
Who is the man she is with ?” 

“ A gentleman of some property, though he is studying for 
the law.” 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. nn 

“ Yes; but I mean what is he to her?” 

Mr. Lewis shrugged his shoulders; he did not feel confiden- 
tially talkative yet, and he had an idea that anything which 
concerned Gerald so closcdy had better be left uninterfered with. 

“I see,” said Mr. de Mortimar, interpreting the gesture in the 
way that w^as natural to him, “ she never cared for the stage 
much, and was always above the people in it. She is looking 
very v^ll— very well indeed. And that is the man she left me 
for ? But I do not remember ever seeing him.” 

“You never did,” observed Lewis; “ they were perfect stran- 
gers to each other till within the last few months, and you are 
mistaken as to the lady herself.” 

“Come into Rockley’s or the Albion,” said his friend, “and 
let us compare notes. If you can persuade me that I do not 
know her, I am willing to believe my own name is not De 
Mortimar.” 

“ No one believes it is except yourself,” said Mr. Lewis, dryly; 
“ but I do not see that it matters to the world or you. As for 
rue, my friend is like a rose, as dear by any name. Do you no- 
tice, by the way, that when a man does change his name, it is 
generally for the worst? A Smith or a Jenkins will stick to his 
own and be proud of it, while a man with something really re- 
spectable will go to the playbills for a substitute.” 

The haughty De Mortimar did not reply to this. If his friend 
chose to nourish such a vulgar doubt, it was not for him to de- 
fend himself from the imputation. For himself, he knew his 
own name, and insisted upon its correct pronunciation to a 
syllable. With the impostors, who were Mortimers with an e, 
or Mortimors w ith an o, he had nothing in common. He was 
a De Mortimar. 

“You say I am wrong,” he said when they stood in front of 
the nearly deserted bar; only a few old stagers, who never played 
in pantomimes and could afford to wait with comparative 
equanimity till the legitimate season commenced, were there at 
this hour, and they w^ere too deeply interested in their own con- 
versation about themselves to hear what others were saying. 

“You say I am wrong, Courtney,— mistaken as to the lady 
herself. Why, I could bring a hundred who would sw’^ear to 
her.” 

“ You might bring a thousand, but that would not constitute 
legal proof. I know exactly what you are running your head 
against. The same idea occurred to me, but when I saw her 
face to face with the man who would have known her better 
than any one else, I was convinced.” 

“ Who was the man ?” 

“ Our friend Lascelles Moss.” 

“ Let me understand,” said the gymnast; “ are we following 
the same idea? You have seen Jenny Delaney often enough to 
know her again.” 

“ If I saw her.” 

“ I cannot help thinking you are trying to mystify me, Court- 
ney, and that is hardly fair as an old friend.” 

“ Judge for yourself,” said Lewis, touched by the appeal, “ I 


126 


A SISTEWS SACRIFICE. 


know no more of the lady than this. I was introduced to her 
by young Barry, the gentleman you saw in the cab; he came to 
our office a few mouths ago, and I took him about London, 
showed him most of the places and people worth seeing. lam 
bound to say that for a youngster wdio had not long left his 
tutor I never saw any one less impressed. He formed his own 
opinions and expressed them freely; they were not as a rule 
flattering.” 

“Well?” 

“ I took him to see Moss amongst others, thinking it would 
amuse him to see one of the levees, and while we were waiting he 
got hold of some photograjohs, — Jenny Delaney w^asone of them. 
He was deeply interested in it, wanted to have one like it, but 
you know (whether old Moss is a hypocrite or not, he sticks to 
the character he takes) he would not let him have one, but he 
told him all about her. You came in for a share in that little 
history,” Lewis added, slyly. 

“ No doubt; old Moss never cared much for me. It is not 
him I have to thank for being back on the London stage. I 
have an agent of my own, and plenty who will go where I go; 
it may be in my power to give this man a bad time of it.” 

“ A work of time, my dear Hector. Most of his clients are 
in his debt; their salaries, present and future, legally as- 
signed to him, and he pays them the balance. They cannot 
take an engagement on any other terms. I put him up to that 
move.” 

“They ought to thank you for it.” 

“They ought, really, for it will make them more eager to get 
out of debt and be independent. However, leaving you out of 
the question, this meeting resulted in an invitation to dinner, 
with a promise of some music. I wondered then at such a sud- 
den manifestation of strong friendship on Barry’s part. He is 
very exclusive as a rule; but he had seen a resemblance betw’een 
the photograph and the lady who gave us some music. It was 
a clever plant on his part, to put them face to face unexpectedly, 
and see if there were any signs of previous acquaintance.” 

“ And how did they meet?” 

“ My dear fellow, it was superb. Old Moss on his best be- 
havior, Miss Daniel as if she had been born in the atmosphere of 
a court, and Pimlico is not far from Buckingham Palace, by 
the way; but there they were, perfect strangers.” 

“So far as you couid judge,” said the gymnast, thought- 
fully. “You could not say they were not prepared for the 
meeting ?” 

“ Certainly not,” said Lewis, with a recollection of that after- 
noon when he saw Jeannette leave the agent’s office; “ but I 
was with them the whole evening, and he remarked to her that 
she reminded him of a young lady he had known. She admit- 
ted, quite naturally, that Jenny Delaney was an old friend of 
hers; that, in fact, she had taught her to sing, and said, it was 
not the first time thev had been mistaken for each other. She 
also said that Jenny Delaney was dead.” 

The gymnast started; perhaps the word never comes with 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 127 

such force as when it is spoken with the careless indifference of 
one who has no interest in the matter. 

“What is this young lady’s name?” 

“ Miss Daniel.” 

“ Miss Daniel! Thanks. I shall be able then at last to get 
some information from one who knew her so well. What is 
Miss Daniel ?” 

“ A teacher of music and governess in general. Plays and 
sings at private parties and so on. I have seen her about the 
neighborhood for many years, a plainly- dressed, quiet little 
thing; used to live in one room, and does now for all I 
know.” 

“Plainly-dressed,” observed De Mortimar with a sneer. “I 
know the value of a genuine fur jacket when I see one, and 
the lady in the cab did not get hers under fifty guineas. 
Music teaching in Pimlico must be well paid for.” 

“ There has been a change since he went to live there,” said 
Lewis. 

“They live in the same house, then?” 

“Yes, they may be married for all I know to the contrary.” 

“Would you mind giving me her address?” 

“You shall have it, but I should not advise you to go near the 
house.” 

“ I can do no harm by going to inquire about my poor little 
wife.” 

“But, good gracious, man,” said Lewis in dismay, “you 
must not say I have told you anything; it would get me into 
no end of trouble.” 

“I should not say you told me.” 

“They would know it, by seeing us together just now.” 

“Well, give me the address, and I can send a letter; your 
name need not be mentioned.” 

Lewis wrote it on the back of a card very reluctantly. 

“Calverton Street,” said Mr. de Mortimar. “A very excel- 
lent street to live in. Near the river and not too far from the 
Strand. I shall take some rooms there. I have not settled 
yet.” 

“Let me advise you to do nothing that may annoy Miss 
Daniel,” Courtney said, gravely. “ Barry has a dangerous tem- 
per, and I should not care to interfere with a strange dog if 
he had patted its head.” 

“A very formidable gentleman, no doubt,” said the gym- 
nast, drawing up his own fine figure, “ but not the first I have 
met.” 

“ You have plenty of strength in your own line,” said Lewis, 
“ but you would be as much out of place in a fight with Barry 
as he would on your trapeze; however, you can do as you like. 
I only tell you he is a powerful young fellow, a cool and rapid 
hitter, and with money enough to pay for any mischief he might 
do.” 

“ A polite letter can give no possible offense,” said De Mor- 
timar. “ I only want to hear what I can of my poor little wife 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


V4S 

from a lady who knew her so well. A gentleman could not 
quarrel with me on that score.” 

Here he was right, and if he chose to live in Pimlico, it was 
surely his own business; there were plenty of streets in that 
particular locality, and if he did not care for Calverton Street 
he could go to the Grosvenor Road end and have a lively view 
of Milbank Prison from the higher back windows, or be might 
get into a side thoroughfare lower down, and date himself from 
Such-a-street, Warwick Square, or Eccleston Square, South Bel- 
gravia. As for lodgings, they were to be had everywhere in un- 
limited variety and price, from a six shilling ante-room over the 
scullery or somewhere in the roof, to a drawing-room suit at 
anything between thirty shillings and six pounds, according to 
the character of the house. A m m of quiet habits and a dislike 
to uncertainty in the regular members of his fellow-lodgers 
would have gone for the lower tariff and been humbly content 
with less respectability, leaving the more expensive figures for 
epicures in apartments. 

Mr. Lewis was discontented with himself when he left his 
friend; he knew that he had said more than was safe, and antic- 
ipated sore trouble from the gymnast. It would be as well, 
he thought, to see Gerald, and tell him, in a casual way, that 
his friend De Mortimar had seen Miss Daniel, and would proba- 
bly write to her for some information concerning the young 
lady who had figured before the world as Jenny Delaney. With 
this intent, he took a cab and went to Calverton Street. He was 
conscious that he was not quite in a fit condition to present him- 
self before such an orderly and temperate man as Barry. He 
knew that his face was flushed, and his articulation less clear 
than it should have been; but when he was like that an idea be- 
came a fixed purpose, and he w^ent. 

Gerald met him at the door. He had been home, and was go- 
ing out again. He took in at a glance the state Lewis w’as in, 
and it made him angry. Courtney saw the proud distaste with 
which he raised his head, and mentally resented it. 

“ I just want to speak to you for a minute,” he said. “ I did 
not know you were back till I saw you in the Strand.” 

“ You must pardon me now, Courtney; I have not a moment 
to spare. And really when you do come, I must ask you to 
have more respect for yourself and me than to come as you are 
now.” 

“ I am rather drunk, you think ?” 

“You are certainly not sober, and you called last week in a 
similar or w'orse condition.” 

“Who told you that? But I may be sure you heard it from 
Miss Daniel. Well, never mind; I did not take the troubl© to 
come on my own account. You may be sorry for treating me 
like this; perhaps somebody else will be, too.” 

“When you are yourself, Courtney, jou are always wel- 
come.” 

“ Bah! Whether I am myself or not, I am as good as you,” 
said Lewis, lurching off the step, with his dignity deeply in- 
jured. “ You wifi be sorr^j' for this, as the song says; you never 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE, 


129 


heard it, of course — you are too proud for anything in the 
.music-hall way, you are— oh, yes, very much sol” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

STRANGE AND SUDDEN. 

More amazed than angry with his recikless acquaintance — 
seriously sorry for him in fact— Gerald went on his errand. 
He always posted his own letters, and he had just written to 
Mr. Channing, telling him that he would be at Lincoln’s Inn 
next day.” 

He wished that he had been less hasty, for he had half an 
hour to spare, while Jeannette dressed for the theater. But the 
cab had gone, and Gerald saw it stop about two hundred yards 
away outside the door of a public- house. It would be quite 
impossible to walk two hundred yards in Pimlico without see- 
ing a public-house, and Gerald knew that Lewis was soothing 
his dignity^side. He posted his letter and returned. 

In that short interval he did not know what Jeannette had 
gone through. She saw her error now at its worst. At any 
moment this man might come, either to claim her for what she 
was worth to him or to expose her in sheer revenge. For the 
girl knew him so well. She knew how bitterly his vanity must 
have been hurt when she left; and badly as he had treated her, 
he was one of those men whose passion, fitful as Jt may be, 
never dies. That he had not an atom of fidelity in his nature 
she was well aware. Such letters as he had from weak-minded 
women he would leave carelessly about for her to read, and out 
of the many he had thrown aside, with less regret than he 
would have bestowed on a dog, there was not one who would 
not have worked, or begged, or died for him. 

When Jeannette thought of him, putting him in contrast 
with Gerald, she sickened at herself, — wondered how even in 
her early girlhood she could have cared for the handsome 
athlete, and thought him a demi-god. And to go back to him, 
if he could claim her, would be worse than death. When she 
reflected that the law might give her to him, she looked down 
the street toward the river. 

Gerald had not noticed how she shrank back in the cab at 
sight of him with Mr. Lewis. He saw that she was pale, but 
attributed it to a sudden chill, and took her home as soon as 
possible. She had longed to tell him then, but her heart failed 
her. She could not, in spoken words, tell him that which would 
make him turn from her in sorrow, and scorn, and pity. To 
live to the last, clinging to a desperate hope that Heaven would 
avert the blow, was her final resolution,— to avoid De Mortimar 
while it was possible, defy him to the worst if the worst came, 
then write to Gerald her farewell, and hide herself away till she 
died. 

When Gerald went in, after posting his letter, he was smiling 
at the recollection of Courtney’s visit. 

“ Your heard some one at the door?” he said. 


130 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


“ I thought I did. A cab came up, J know.” 

“ It was poor Bob Lewis — in his usual state too. He wanted 
to speak to me for a moment, but I knew that even if it was 
for a temporary loan, it would not have been good for him. So 
I gave him a fieiy lecture on the iniquity of his ways and let 
him go indignant. He is a curious fellow, full of little mysteries 
that when they are fully told come out like the mouse from the 
mountain.” 

“Was he angry ?” 

“ In his own absurd way. He told me I should be sorry for 
it. quoting from some stupid song that, I suppose, is in vogue 

i 'ust now. He said that I had never heard it, of course, because 
was mucli too proud for anything in the music-hall way. 
And then he lurched toward his cab, muttering. ‘Oh, yes; 
very much so.’ Poor fellow. He did not get further than the 
next tavern, and I dare say he’s there now.” 

Jeannette smiled, but her heart was full of deadly fear; she 
knew what those allusions meant, the threat thew veiled. It 
might be easy, with the help of Lascelles Moss,^o hide her 
identity from the world in general, but not from De Mortiniar. 
No disguise ever invented could conceal a wife from her husband 
or a husband from his wife, if they were face to face, and spoke 
together for two minutes. 

“ We shall have a whole week to ourselves,” said Gerald, with 
a fond glance. “ I shall not be required at the office— I shall not 
go if I am — except for an hour or two a day, and w^e must plan 
out our evenings to the best advantage, so that w’e may have a 
good time before I bury myself at Ashford Lynn. I can finish 
the work I have undertaken there in about a fortnight, and then 
I shall speak to Mr. Channing.” 

“ But you will see him to-morrow' ?” 

“ Yes, my pet. I do not, however, think it would be good to 
speak to him to-morrow, as the subject is the one nearest my 
heart, when you are near, Jeannette — and you are the subject.” 

“I would not do so yet,” she said, half frightened, yet so full 
of gladness, “ not yet, Gerald.” 

“ Nonsense, dearest; in our case procrastination is the thief of 
love. I am not so ungrateful as not to be very happy as we are, 
but I have a picture of my own. I shall tell Mr. Channing the 
truth, and he is too fond of me to be very angry; he could not be 
after he had seen you; and then w’e could go for a genuine 
honeymoon, out of the way of English fogs and east winds, and 
the rain that raineth every day from April to the end of June. 
We will go in search of the sunshine, my Jeannette, to the south 
of France and Italy. You are such a wise and clever little girl 
that we shall not w'ant a wagon-load of luggage, and our four 
hundred a year will take us through.” 

“ If it only could be so,” she said, wdth a plaintive wistfulness 
that made him kiss her very tenderly. 

“ It shall be so. I am of the creed that a man can do what he 
will do, and I tell you that we have nothing to fear from Mr. 
Channing; he is too fond of me to be angry long.” 

“Yet you wdll have deceived him.” 


A JSISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


131 


“I shall let him see you, and urge my love as an extenuating 
circumstance,” he said, playfully. “What can he say then?” 

“ What would you say, Gerald, if the case were yours, even 
if you were as fond as he is of you?” 

“ Well, I hardly know. It would depend upon the provoca- 
tion and my state of mind at the time. I admit,” he added, 
gravely, “that an act of treachery, however slight, comes with 
greater force from those we love, because it looks as though 
they have discounted their chances of forgiveness beforehand. 
I wish that I had told him everything now; but I will begin by 
telling him that I want to marry you, and let him see you by 
some means or other. You will like Mr. Channing, pet, and he 
win like you, and,” he said, going at a plunge into a satisfactory 
conclusion, “ everything will come right in time.” 

So Jeannette hoped most fervently. She took comfort from 
those words, spoken in Gerald’s gentle mood. Her love sug- 
gested that he might forgive her, even if he knew the worst. 

Yet her dread of the man she had seen was so great that she 
sat back in her box at the theater, in fear lest he should be lurk- 
ing in some part of the house. She could not forget him in 
spite of the bright opening — a well- written and well- played ex- 
travaganza — full of pretty thought and poetic fancy, with 
nothing of the pantaloon or mime about it except the name. 
She was glad when the transformation scene came. They had 
arranged not to stay for the harlequinade. She was glad they 
had a brougham to take her out of a neighborhood so danger- 
ous as Drury Lane, where the very population seems theatrical, 
and names well known on the playbills are to be seen over the 
fronts of cigar divans and public houses. 

Jeannette did not go out again to any entertainment that 
took her near the Strand. She went to the Crystal Palace, in 
the same quiet brougham, a pleasant place even in » the winter 
if the day be fine, and she went to a West End concert late 
in the week. This was their last evening together, though 
they had arranged for another on the morrow. But on the mor- 
row Gerald had to leave her. 

He had seen Mr. Channing every day and stayed for an hour 
or two, as he intended doing nothing in the way of actual busi- 
ness he was not required to. He sat with Mr. Channing talking 
of Ashford Lynn and its people, and when he mentioned Lord 
Farnbourne’s desire that he should stay with him and arrange 
his museum, the lawyer consented at once. 

“You can resume your studies, and your work with me at 
any time,” Mr. Channing said. “I should like you to please 
such an old client as Lord Farnbourne, and 1 am glad you did 
not find his eccentricities too tedious.” 

“ On the contrary; in fact, I have failed to see them. I found 
him a kind and courteous gentleman, a true aristocrat, full of 
old world lore and learning. I like him extremely.” 

“ And the others.” 

“ Mrs. St. Herrington would be difficult to endure; her daughter 
I should not care to stndv. Captain Hillier is like his uncle, a 


132 A SISTER^S SACRIFICE, 

true aristocrat — the first genuine gentleman I have met on inti 
mate terms/’ 

“ And a further stay will not be irksome?” 

“ Not by any means ?” 

Mr. Ciianning said no more on that subject. He asked Gerald 
to come in every day if only for an hour, and Gerald went until 
the fifth day, when he met Mr. Lascelles Moss by acident, and 
could not resist that gentleman’s hearty invitation to have a 
chop with him. 

Meanwhile a telegram had arrived at Lincoln’s Inn from 
Hillier St. Derrington, bearing the strange and sudden news 
that Lord Farnbourne had fallen from the steps in the library 
and was seriously injured. Mr. Channing was to go at once and 
take Gerald with him. 

The solicitor went to Calverton Street as fast as a horse could 
take him, and asked for Gerald. The girl did not know whether 
he Was out or at home; and without waiting for her, Channing 
himself went up-stairs. He knocked and entered. Gerald was 
not there; he only saw a young girl sitting at the window, do- 
ing some light needlework — a girl with, he thought, a singularly 
sweet and attractive face; but he wondered what she w^as 
doing there, unless he had gone into the wrong room by mis- 
take. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

A GOOD IMPRESSION. 

Jeannette looked up expecting to see Gerald, for she had not 
beard Mr. Channing’s quiet knock outside. When she saw a 
stranger her lieart trembled. She had such a dread of the gym- 
nast, and this man might be some one sent by him. 

The thought died away, however, as quickly as it came. One 
glance at the solicitor’s fine countenance reassured her, and she 
knew him after that glance. Gerald had described him so fre- 
quently, not by his features, or his figure, height or color, but 
by his character, and she had formed her own idea as to w^hat 
a man with such a nature should be like; it only remained for 
him to speak, and when he spoke, she was certain. 

“ Pardon me,” he said, “but I wished to see Mr. Barry. I 
have mistaken the rooms, perhaps.” 

“ No, sir; these are his rooms; but he is out. He went to the 
oflftce this morning, and I do not expect him to return till the 
evening. Has he not been ?” 

“ Tills is the Miss Daniel I have heard of,” thought Channing, 
“ and she speaks of him like one who knew his habits, and she 
asks me if he has not been. She cannot know who I am.” 

“No,” he answered, “Mr, Barry has not been to the oflSce 
yot, and I wish to see him most urgently. Can you tell me 
where I am likely to find him ? 

“ He went out with the intention of going to Lincoln’s Inn: 
and he must have been detained on the way. You are— excuse 
me, sir, Mr. Channing?” 

“ Yes, I am Mr. Channing. How did you know ?” 


A SISTERS S SACRIFICE. 


133 


“From Gerald only.” 

She saw her mistake when the word was out, and stopped 
embarrassed. 

“From Gerald only,” he repeated, smiling gravely. “He 
must have described me very closely for you to recognize me so 
easily. Pray keep your seat, young lady. I will wait in the hope 
that he may come in, but not if I disturb you. I have left a 
message for him.” 

The girl resumed her seat, and tried to go on with her work; 
but her hand shook and her color came and went. She could 
find nothing to say; she longed to explain her presence, then 
longed more than all to leave the room, but her feet felt like 
lead, and to reach the door she had to pass him, as he sat study- 
ing her quietly. 

“You are fond of reading,” he said, presently; “and I see. 
Miss Daniel, that he chooses your books for you. I find your 
name here in this volume of Scott; here again in ‘ Evangeline;’ 
and here again in the Rose Gaultier Ballads and Macaulay’s 
poems; here, too, in ‘Jane Eyre..’ But you are no longer Miss 
Daniel.” * 

She let her work fall, and looked at him with startled eyes. 

“ You are simply Jeannette,” he said with a smile, “and he is 
Gerald, as if in those two names the history of both w’ere 
written. Your friendship must have grown very rapidly, for 
you scarcely can have known each other more than four months, 
unless you met before.” 

“ We have never met before,” she said; “ I never saw him till 
he came here.” 

“And in so short a time you come to this?” he said, in 
thoughtful deprecation. “J have an interest in him. Miss 
Daniel, or I would not presume to speak. May I ask what it 
means ?” 

“ Would it not be better to ask him that, sir ?” she said, taking 
courage from something very much like despair. 

“You are right; yet I would rather hear from you ?” 

“ There is nothing more than you see,” Jeannette said quietly. 
“ Mr. Barry was always kind to me, and we learned to like each 
other very much. You see me here because I sit here when he 
is not at home. And do not be angry with him on my account, 
Mr. Channing.” 

“There can be no occasion to bti angry with either of you,” 
he said; “but it is my duty to warn you that it would be un- 
wise to let his kindness and your liking for each other take you 
beyond your depth. Of you personally I know very little; I 
simply speak to you as I would to any other young lady in your 
position. I can easily understand the circumstances that have 
fed to this. Living in the same house, meeting frequently, and 
having tastes in common, you have established a pretty little 
friendship, which might, if you were not as sensible as I hope 
you are, grow into a mistaken sense of obligation on both sides. 
Friendship is always good, this Idnd of friendship is best of all, 
with the fatal drawback that it is the most dangerous. You are 


134 A SISTER^S SACRIFICE, 

to him what a sister might be, Miss Daniel, and— you are not 
his sister.” 

“ Whatever I might have been or may be to him, Mr. Chan- 
ning,” said Jeannette, rising, “ I would never stand in the way 
of his future, and without your sanction I would not see him 
again, if you told me it was best. I may not even as it is; he is 
going away next week, and perhaps when he comes back he will 
not find me here.” 

“You love him. Miss Daniel?” 

“ Very dearly — more than you can understand.” 

“ If so, I should be very sorry; but you are both very young, 
and what has passed may be forgotten, I will not say soon, for 
these things leave a pain behind them that does not easily wear 
away. It would be better, however, to let him be quite free till 
he is older. Bind him to no promise that will fetter him; he is 
not much younger, may not be any younger than you are, but 
for a man he is very young: he ought to wait five years at least 
— he would not be too old to marry — before he takes the one 
step that in a man’s life is or should be final.” 

“Then you would have me give him up entirely?” 

“ I do not say so; but if j'ou care for him you will act as I 
suggest and leave him quite free. Tempt him into no step that 
his friends could not ratify; he might defy them even now, but 
at a cost he does not comprehend.” 

“ He shall do nothing for my sake that may incur his friends’ 
displeasure,” Jeannette said slowly, “nothing, Mr. Channing.” 

“ It is better so,” he said, and then he changed the subject. 

If he had been cruel, it was, he told himself, with the kindest 
motives. It was more merciful to say that which should make 
her heart ache for a time, than let her go on in a course that 
could only end in her heart being broken. 

He did not find it difficult to elicit what he wanted to know 
concerning herself. Her own inborn gravity and self possession 
came to her aid when the painful topic was dropped, and his 
manner was kinder. He was interested in her story so far as 
she told it, and Jeannette had no reserve, always excepting her 
marriage with Gerald and the dark episode when she was Jenny 
Delaney. The rest was the truth, pure and simple. 

She told him even of her first sight of Gerald, when, not 
knowing he was there, she made herself at home and drank his 
tea. She told him of her accident on the staircase and its con^ 
sequences — of Gerald’s visit to her patroness, and his kindness 
when she was disabled and could not go to her pupils. Mr. 
Channing led her on, and took her back from incident to inci- 
dent till he was fairly acquainted with her history from child- 
hood. He grew interested in her, and began to like her very 
much. 

“ Here is a sweet attractive nature any man would love,” he 
thought; “ and if Gerald was simply what he seems, I myself 
could not choose better for him; but he is too young as yet, 
and a sweet attractive nature is not everything.” 

“ You do not think me unkind, I hope?” he said; “ or if yoi\ 
do you will not think so later on.” 


A SISTJ^R^S SACRIFICE. 135 

“ I do not now, Mr. Channing. I know von are quite right, 
and you will not say a word to Gerald, please. You may trust 
me.” 

She heard Gerald’s footsteps in the hall as this was said. 

“I will trust you, Miss Daniel,” Mr* Channing replied) press^ 
mg her hand; “ and you may trust me as your friend and his* 
You know my address in Lincoln’s Inn.” 

Gerald came in. He did not expect to find Mr. Channing sit- 
ting there apparently on such good terms with Jeannette. 

“ Miss Daniel has been good enough to entertain me,” said 
Mr. Channing, “ or I should have had a dull and anxious hour. 
You had my message ?” 

“Yes, and came at once.” 

“ Is your cab waiting ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Then we will keep it. We are wanted both of us at Ashford 
Lynn. Lord Farn bourne has had an accident, and is in a crit- 
ical condition. Can you start without delay ?” 

“ Within five minutes,” Gerald answered, as he opened the 
door for Jeannette. “ I am sorry to hear that. Have you been 
talking to Miss Daniel all the time?” 

“ Ever since I came in, but you need not be afraid. I have 
heard no secrets other than I found here,” and he touched one 
of the books. “ When you make presents of this kind, with in- 
scriptions of a tender nature under the cover, you should not 
have them left on your own table; but young men, even the 
wisest of them, are indiscreet when they are in love, or think 
they are.” 

Gerald let the remark pass. So far no harm had been done by 
this unexpected, and otherwise unwelcome, incident. He had 
wanted Jeannette and Mr. Channing to meet, but not at the 
time when she might be taken off her guard; still, he knew that 
after the confusion of the first few moments he could depend 
upon her own discretion and good taste. 

The five minutes did not extend to ten, and in that jtime he 
put some requisites together, and had a few words with Jean- 
nette. 

“ I may not be gone many days,” he said. “ and when I return, 
Jeannette, we will arrange things differently. I am glad you 
have seen Mr. Channing. Do you like him ?” 

“ I think so.” 

“You must have made a favorable impression , or he would 
not have stayed so long.” 

“ Yes, I am sure I made a favorable impression,” the girl said, 
dubiously; “ but I am afraid, Gerald, you are wrong in think- 
ing that he would forgive you what you call the meanness of 
trickery.” 

“ We shall have to live without forgiveness then. If he is not 
satisfied after he has seen you, I shall not care for his opinion. 
But I can speak to him more freely now.” 

Impatient as he knew Mr. Channing would be, he could not 
part with Jeannette easily. She did not seem as if she could 


136 A SISTEirS SACRIFICE. 

bear to let him go; she clung to him closely and passionately, 
trying hard to keep back her tears. 

“ Bly darling,” he said, “ my stupid little pet, if I were going 
a voyage to the antipodes you could not be more reluctant to 
part with me.” 

“ We never know, Gerald, we never know! when we part, if 
onlv for an hour as we think, it may be forever.” 

lie kissed her witli an affectionate rebuke, and left her. As 
he neared the bottom of the stairs he heard her tearful voice call 
him softly; he looked back, and she came half way down. She 
took him in her arms again, with all the strength of love, and 
her last words to him were “ Good-bye.” 

“I did not think a husband could be so much dearer to a 
woman than her lover is,” he said to himself. “Jeannette has 
not the self-control she used to have. Poor girl, it is hard that 
T should be away from her so much just now; this, however, 
shall be the last of it.” 

“You have not been more than ten minutes,” Mr. Channing 
said to him, “ but it has seemed an hour to me. If you knew 
how precious the moments vvere, you would not have wasted 
one even on your farewell to Miss Daniel.” 

“If you knew how precious Miss Daniel was to me, you 
■would not say so,” Gerald said, dryly; “ but I am ready now.” 


CHAPTER XXX. 

LORD FARNBOURNE’S HEIR. 

When they reached Ashford Lynn they found Captain St. 
Derrington waiting for them with his phaeton and a pile of 
rugs that would have taken them in safety through a Siberian 
journey. 

“ Awfully glad you have come,” he said, shaking hands 
warmly with Gerald. , “ I haven’t much faith in telegrams and 
trains, but I did think they would be right for once, so I came 
myself. Poor old uncle is very anxious about you, Mr. Chan- 
ning. I have had a hard morning’s work. Servants seem to 
lose their heads when anything is to be done.” 

“ How did it happen r” the solicitor asked. 

“ Well. I am very sorry, you see, but I never could take an 
interest in those extraordinary hobbies of uncle’s, and ever since 
Barry went aw^ay he has done nothing but potter about the 
museum and the book-shelves. I told him to send for me if he 
wanted anything done, and he did send this morning. I was 
playing billiards by myself when he did send, and just as I got 
to the library door I heard a crash, and when I went in there 
was the poor old man on the ground with a pile of heavy books 
all over him. Tlie steps had slipped, it seems, and there was 
no one with him but that old fool .Sterling and Mrs. St. Der- 
rington.” 

“ And Lord Farnbourne himself was on the steps?” 

“ Yes; he did not wait for me. Perhaps he thought I should 
hot cafe ^ to go, ’’"the guardsman added, scornfully; “htit he 


A mSTER^S SACRIFICE, 137 

ought to have known better. As a rule, when I have offered 
myself, he has told me I am in the way.” 

Who is with him now?” 

“Mr. Harford, the rector, and Dolton, the doctor, and Nelson, 
the local attorney. I had to fetch them all. Nelson is not a 
bad fellow for a country lawyer, and you won’t mind meeting 
him.” 

“Does Lord Farnbourne consider himself in serious danger 
then ?” 

“ Poor old chap— yes; he has made up his mind that it is all 
over. I wonder he did not die on the spot, such a fall as it was. 
I have not made much fuss of him myself, it isn’t in my way, 
but when I saw him down, by Jove! I did feel it. I wish you 
had been there, Barry ; it would not have happened then.” 

“I wish so too, w’ith all my heart,” Gerald said; “I wish I 
had. But they must have been grossly careless — a child’s hand 
would have kept the steps steady.” 

Mr. Channing sat still and silent, thinking. He rode with his 
arms folded, and the rugs over his knees, hearing rather than 
listening to what the young man said. 

Hillier gave the reins to the groom when they reached the 
house, and led the way himself to Lord Farnbourne’s room. At 
sight of Gerald, the old man’s eyes lighted up with a fond, ex- 
pectant gleam. There were three persons in the room— the 
rector, the doctor, and the lawyer, the last writing on parch- 
ment from a document the rector was reading to him. 

“ You are here at last. Old friend,” tlie old peer said. “ I did 
not know whether you might be too late, so I sent for Nelson. 
They tell me I may live yet; but at my age, and after such a 
fall, I know there is no hope. And wdiy should there be? I 
have lived long enough to see my brother’s son. Bring the boy 
here, Channing. Gerald!” 

The solicitor took the young man’s hand, and led him for- 
ward. 

“ Hillier,” said Lord Farnbourne, “ come and lift me up a 
little.” 

Tbe guardsman obeyed. To do him justice, he did not, 
though he divined w^hat w^as coming, shrink from his uncle or 
throw an unkind look at Gerald. 

“ I call you all to witness,” the old peer said, in his deep, hol- 
low voice, “ that in these, my last moments, I declare this gen- 
tleman, known to the world as Gerald Barry, to be Valentine 
Gerald Barrymore, the legitimate and only son of ny brother 
of the same name, and Charlotte Alice Langley, his true and 
lawful wife; and I' name him here my heir and successor, as my 
last will and testament shall direct.” 

In the profound silence that followed, no one was so deeply 
moved as Gerald himr.elf. He understood now* his owm instinct- 
ive liking for the eccentric nobleman; he w^as not greatly sur- 
prised, yet the revelation came upon him like a siiock. He saw 
the delicate, white hand extended to him, and he took it, hardly 
able to keep back his tears. 

“ You see, my boy. I knew you,” Lord Farnbourne said, loolv^'. 


138 


A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE. 


irig at him wistfully, “ and you will try to think more kindly of 
your father’s memory. Gerald, he was not so bad as they said, 
and you will restore his portrait to its place in the gallery. He 
was not so bad as people said, Gerald, for though he would not 
give way before the world, he wrote to me, wrote for me I 
should say, a letter in which he withdrew every imputation on 
your mother’s name, admitting her innocence and his own 
faults. He gave it to me together with the document he forced 
from her.” 

“Thank Heaven,” said Gerald, under his breath; “ my lord, I 
want no more than this, you have given me back what is my 
own, my mother’s name, my father’s recognition. To the rest I 
have no right.” 

“ Hush!” said the old man. “ I have more to say. The docu- 
ment your father made your mother sign was left with me to 
deal with as I chose. If I made you my heir, it was to be 
destroyed. You brought it to me yourself, Gerald, when Chan- 
ning first sent you to me, and you shall see it burned presently. 

I have made you my heir, Gerald; but not till I found you 
worthy. I have watched over you every day since your mother 
died, and you are worthy of her. You are like my brother w’hen 
I knew him at his best, wdien he was the companion of my 
youth. Had you been what he was when he degraded himself 
and disgraced his name, — had you been like him then, even for 
a month, I would not have left you poor, but I would have left 
you unacknowledged. Take him away, Channing. I will send 
for you soon, Gerald. You can go with him, Hillier.” 

There was much meaning in the words as the old man said 
them, — an infinite longing and pathos. Gerald understood him. 
The old man would have liked to live to see his brother’s son 
grow into what his brother might have been. 

He went into the library, the scene of the accident. Nothing 
had been disturbed since the morning, except that the steps had 
been picked up and placed against the shelves. They were the 
tallest of the three in the room, and the old man must have 
been near the top when be fell, judging by the shelves from 
which the books had fallen. 

Gerald tried the steps with his whole weigiit, shook them, 
left himself unsupported by the wall of books, and tried to push 
them from under him, and they remained quite firm. He got 
down and looked at the floor, and saw that by the mark left on ' 
the polished wood they must have slipped sideways. He 
mounted again, and reached as far as b<.‘ could on either side, 
trusting to his own agility to save himself if they did slip, but 
they remained as firm as ever. 

“ Trying to break your neck to escape the burden of thirteen 
thousand a year?” said the slow voice of the guardsman, “or 
taking an inventory of the books in anticipation? You are 
just about where poor old uncle was when he went down this 
morning.” 

“I am trying to see how these steps could have slipped 
by accident,” Gerald said gravely, “ and my own impression 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


139 


is that nothing else than a deliberate push, or the falling 
of a heavy body against them, would cause them to move.” 

“Not unless they were placed against some loose books,” said 
Hillier, “but uncle is not safe on his feet. 1 could not climb 
up there where you are. Poor old uncle, I am sorry for him, 
though it is rather a take in for me. I want you to believe, 
Barry, that I should have been just as sorry had "things gone on 
as I expected.” 

“ I am sure you would.” 

“ And I want you to believe,” said the captain, more impress* 
ively, “ that I am glad you are set right about your name, and 
that sort of thing, you know. You see, 1 never bad any reason 
to believe myself his heir, but it was the general impiession. 
Aunt made me believe it, and Helen took it for granted, and I 
raised a lot of tin on it. I am awfully sorry for Helen. I should 
have spoken to her after what you said, but I cannot very well 
offer her about a thousand a year and my debts. I want a thou- 
sand a year at the very least, and so does she, and we could not 
very well set up housekeeping under two or three more.” 

“And if you had these two or three more?” 

“ They wouldn’t be any use, my dear fellow; there would be 
the disappointment, you see. I believe that for years she has 
made up her mind to be mistress here; the St. Herringtons of 
Ashford Lynn would not have sounded so bad. T tell you 
what, though, Barry,” he said, with an eagerness that told of a 
remarkable mental effort, “you might marry her yourself.” 

“ Thank you,” said Gerald; “this is worth taking into con- 
sideration. This is, of course, sinking your own regard for her, 
and hers for you.” 

“ You see,” said the guardsman, seating himself in an easy- 
chair — “by Jove, what comfortable seats they make for men 
who like books! — you see women such as my cousin Helen 
are as rare as thoroughbred racers; a man cannot bid for them 
unless he has made his book on the winning side. Now, Helen 
is very fond of me, and I care for her more than any one I know; 
but then she is to be run for, and she falls to the winner. I may 
be as good a horse as you, in fact I must be, we have the same 
pedigree, came from the same stable as it were, but you were 
first past the post, and I am a bad second — a deuced bad second, 
with the rest nowhere.” 

“ If this man could feel more deeply I would make some sac- 
rifice for him,” Gerald said to himself, “ but the loss of such a 
fortune and such a woman troubles him no more than a bad 
day at Epsom or Ascot would.” 

“ I should not mind so much,” the captain went on, as he took 
a meerschaum from its case and filled it, “ if I had not raised 
such a lot of tin on my expectations, or if Farnbourne had told 
me two or three years ago. I say, Barry, what a good thing it 
would have been for me if you had turned out a bad lot, like — 
you know; but I am glad you did not, old fellow. A man likes 
to be proud of his own people, and I shall introduce you every- 
where, - as I would have done before, when I thought you 
’yere — — ” ^ 


140 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE, 


“ Tell me.” 

“ Well, aunt saw the resemblance first, and I saw it when she 
pointed it out to me. There is no mistake about your being 
your father’s son.” 

“And you thought I had no right to have his name?” 

“That is so,” said Hillier, nodding refiectively; “and I 
thought it seemed hard at tliesame time, for I saw you were a 
gentleman, you see, with plenty of the breed about you, and 
enough brains for a prime minister or a chancellor of the ex- 
chequer.” 

“ And,” said Gerald, slowly, “ thinking that, you met me as 
you did ?” 

“Why not? You could no more have helped it, had it been 
so, than you can help being a gentleman. You are just the kind 
of fellow I like for a chum, and T meant to stick to you.” 

“And this change, St. Derrington. Now that I have sup- 
planted you, will it make any difl[erence in youi* liking, your 
friendship ?” 

“ Not a bit; things are as they ought to have been all along, 
after all. Yes, I am glad,” he said, as though he had given the 
subject its best consideration, and made up his mind irrevocably, 
“ for it must be an awful thing to walk about the earth with a 
cloud over one. You can think of your father now without 
hating him, and you must feel your heart full of thankfulness 
when you remember that you stood up for your mother all 
along.” 

“St. Derrington,” said Gerald, earnestly, “if I had never 
liked you before, I should hold you as my friend from this hour — 
my friend, fast and true, my own kith and kin. I might have 
misunderstood you through your manner — your mannerisms 
rather, but I know you now.” 

“ Hope so,” said Hillier, tranquilly; “ but I shall be all right. 
I dare say uncle will leave me enough to pay my debts with, 
and then I shall exchange for active service. Here, somebody 
wants you!” 

The somebody was a servant; Gerald had been sent for to Lord 
Farn bourne’s room. 

He had not been gone many seconds when Helen entered in 
search of her cousin; she threw herself into his arms before he 
had time to speak, and lield him with passionate affection. 

“ Hillier,” she said, “is this true?” 

“What, about our young friend here getting everything? 
Yes, dear, it is quite true, and I am very sorry for you, Helen,” 
he said, simply, “ for if it had come to me I should have asked 
you to be my wife, for I love you, Helen. Hard— isn't it?” 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE FIRST TO HEAR. 

It was the first time Captain St. Derrington had said this in 
so many words, and he perhaps spoke now rather on the impulse 
of a sympathetic moment, than from any well-grounded feeling, 
lie was touched by her regret for him— the love evinced by bee 


A SISTFAVS SACniFICF. 


141 


comhjg to him at the moment she heard of his loss; and he had 
a secret sense that he had wronged her when he said that it was 
Lord Farnbourne’s heir she cared for chiefly. 

“Not that it matters now.” he said to himself. “I may as 
well have said it as not. I should hardly expect her to marry 
a man on a bachelor’s allowance, and I hope, by Jove, she will 
not expect me to ask her to make such a sacrifice.” 

“ I am sorry, Hillier, very sorry,” she said: “ but I cannot help 
thinking it is your own fault. If you had been different, this 
man could never have supplanted you. Nothing but your own 
indifference and neglect left the way clear for him.” 

“Yes,” he said, quietl}, “I suppose I must expect plenty of 
that sort of comfort; but depend upon it, Helen, no conduct of 
mine would have altered matters. Uncle has been watching 
that boy ever since he went to school. The poor old fellow was 
fond of his father, you see, and I was never in it. Now, I dare- 
say if I had been a red-hot scamp, I should have got along 
better: but it must be an awful lot of trouble to be a thorough 
bad one, get drunk, and have rows with people, and run away 
with other fellows’ wives, and so on; but I never cared for it, 
and here I am.” 

“But, Hillier, you will not submit,— you will not give up 
your right without a struggle, — you will not let this adventurer 
without a name take your place?” 

“We will drop the subject, please, my dear girl; it is not 
pleasant to hear such things from you. If I had twenty thou- 
sand pounds to waste on such malicious folly, I should benefit 
no one but the lawyers. I might succeed in throwing some 
very adhesive dirt upon my cousin’s name; but. you see, ma 
belle Helen, he’s my cousin. If I am sorry for anything.” he 
added, seriously, “ is that such a proposition came from you, if 
it did: but it sounds more like aunt’s. How is she?” 

“Like a woman out of her mind,— quite broken down and 
aged. I do not think she knows what she is saying, but she 
hates this young man as bitterly as I do.” 

“As you do, Helen; why?” 

“ For coming here.” 

The guardsman turned away. This unreasonable, ungener- 
ous bitterness made him angry. 

“ You are wrong, Helen,” he said, gravely; “ he was sent for. 
Uncle— Lord Fambourne— had a plan of his own all along, and 
we deceived ourselves when we made up our minds that I was 
to be his heir. My claim upon him is no more than your own, 
and there may be a dozen other’s as near.” 

“ But you were always his favorite.” 

“That is to say I never incurred his dislike. He has paid my 
debts, so far as he knew of them, and kept me going with money 
when I have hinted at a want of it. I have nothing to com- 
plain of, Helen. It is my own fault if I waited for dead men’s 
shoes, and had to find out, rather late in the day, perhaps, that 
they are intended for some one else.” 

“ Have you thought, Hifiier, of your future, that you. take this 
so tranquilly?” - 


142 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 

“ My dear Helen, I do not, in your sense of the word, undei^ 
stand what a future means. I have no ambition, no energy, and 
I am afraid very little talent. I believe I am a tolerably good 
soldier, or could be if I liked, and I shall try. I shall exchange 
for active service, and rub along with what little uncle may 
leave me.” 

“ And I, Hillier, have you thought what I am to do? 

“ Forget that you have wasted some of the best years of your 
life in caring for one who was too blind to see it I am very 
fond of you, Helen; I know it now — my eyes have been opened 
lately, and if I had been what I thought I should be until to- 
day, you would have been mistress of Ashford Lynn. As it 
is-^^ — ” 

“ As it is?” she repeated, waiting. 

“What could we do, Helen, you and I?” he said, shaking his 
head gravely, “ with a little money? — Heaven knows how little 
it may be.” 

It was not for her to tell him. She could do nothing with this 
indolent, gentle, careless, helpless man. To him the loss of ex- 
pectations meant simply a reduction of expenses and a lessening 
of luxuries. It was almost an after thought when he told her 
that he loved her; he found, when he began to consider it, that 
she was essential to him as a companion, and he would rather 
she did not marry any one else. 

“ We are both getting old, you see,” be said, with plaintive 
frankness. “It is seven years since you came out, my dear 
Helen, and I feel as if I had been in the world for a century or 
so. You will have to marry money, and your chance would be 
either with a middle-aged man or a very young one. As for 
me, it would take me ten years to make my way in the army 
now, and by that time a wife is the last thing I should think 
of. When I think of it, I do not thank my father for bringing 
me up to depend upon my expectations from my uncle, and I 
should not like my boy to think the same of me.” 

Perhaps his thoughts of his father were harder than he said, 
and even if they we^, his cousin Helen’s were harder still. She 
had looked upon him for so long as her own, feeling that when 
the time came,— when he was master of Ashford Lynn, — it would 
be easy for her to win the reward of her devotion. She knew 
that he had told her the truth in his tranquil fashion; he would 
neither sacrifice her nor himself on what he considered a small 
income. Many would have thought themselves rich upon it, 
but the comparison between thirteen thousand a year and per- 
haps at most as many hundreds was too great. 

“And this fellow,” she thought, with bitter hatred of Gerald, 
“who but for an old man’s weakness would have no name or 
place, will perhaps bring some low-born creature here where I 
should have been. They may call him Lord Farnbourne if they 
please, but where I have power he shall never be received or 
recognized.” 

Yet there was a secret fear of him as she said this mentally. 
She had felt his power, and although she tried to look upon him 
as a boy, yet Miss St. Herrington had to confess that to all 


A ^iSTJSn^S SACniFICE. 143 

intents and pui^oses he was in manhood far beyond her cousin 
Hillier. On this account she hated Gerald the more. 

An hour later she heard him spoken to as Lord Farnbourne, 
for her uncle was dead. The old peer had made a supreme 
effort to keep himself up after his heavy fall of the morning. 
He was conscious to the last, till he fell into the sleep from 
which he did not wake, and to the last he told Gerald of his 
father, as if he wished the boy to think more tenderly of that 
parent’s memory. 

It was the old peer’s wish that Gerald should remain in the 
house, and make it his principal abode. He was quite resigned, 
and the calm upon his spirit might have taught the rector some- 
thing more than he knew of that Christianity which lives out- 
side and beyond the pulpit, and to the last with a touch of 
quaint humor he spoke of his museum.” 

“You will take care of that, and all I leave behind,” he said. 
“ Whatever I have left undone, you, with your heart and judg- 
ment, will understand and do for me, and you may, in time, 
add another truck load to our collection.” 

It was some time before he spoke again. 

“ Your father,” he said then, “ was not so bad as people said; 
but he was wrong to your mother. If you ever win a woman’s 
love, Gerald, keep it, in spite of pain, and doubt and trouble,— 
keep it! You can but have one wife. The divine law is the 
best and only one. The law of men is made for the interest of 
the law. Had your father thought with me, he would have 
been an honorable man; his wife, a happy woman.” 

The words went home to Gerald. They were nearly the last 
the old man spoke. “If you ever win a woman’s love, Gerald, 
keep it, in spite of pain, and doubt, and trouble — keep it.” 
These very words might have applied to himself and Jeannette. 

He never regretted his deception in regard to his marriage 
more than he did when he sat by the bedside with the dead 
man’s hand in his own. The knowledge that he was safe be 
yond rebuke or change of fortune made his regret more keen. 
He had not known the old man long, but there was no pretense 
about his sorrow; he kept himself away from the rest. It sick- 
ened him to hear himself addressed by the dead man’s title be- 
fore the grave had closed over him. 

“ You two,” he said to Mr. Channing and Hillier, “ will speak 
to me as you have always done. I shall avoid the others. I 
must stay since it was his wish, but I would rather go to Lon- 
don and return.” 

“ You are better here,” said Mr. Channing, “ and I myself 
shall stay, though I have some business that I cannot very well 
do here, and I want a trustworthy messenger.” 

“ If you would not mind making use of me,” suggested Hillier, 
“ make me your aid-de-camp. I will look upon you as my com- 
mander-in-chief, and carry your dispatches through in spite of 
fire and sword.” 

“ If you were serious.” 

“ On ray word I am. I want a day or two in town. I am 


144 A SlSTER^S SACIilFim. 

rather unstrung, as you may imagine, but shall be back for the 
funeral.” 

“That will be necessary,” Mr. Channing observed. “I will 
take advantage of your offer, Captain St. Derrington. When do 
you think of going i”’ 

“ To-morrow.” 

“ That will do. Tlie instructions I have to send are such as I 
should not care to transmit by post. The system may not make 
ten mistakes in a million, but it might make one of that ten 
with mine.” 

Hillier went up the next day, bearing a packet from Mr. 
Channing to his manager. The guardsman had not mentioned 
his own business, but he was going to anticipate the usual pub- 
licity and escape the congratulations of his friends. He knew 
that it would make no difference amongst his clubmen, but he 
rather enjoyed the consternation that would fall upon the 
Semitic gentlemen who had been so ready to oblige Lord Farn- 
bourne’s supposed heir at so much — so very much — per cent. 

“ They will think it a deliberate swindle,” he said to himself, 
“and each one of about twenty-five will want me to sell my 
commission for his particular benefit. The children of Israel 
will say things of Ichabod, and have the blood of the next 
Gentile who falls in their clutches. I shall offer them a shilling 
in the pound if they are very good, and if they make me sell my 
commission, they will get about three farthings.” 

The manager "was absent when Hillier arrived at Lincoln's 
Inn, but one of the firm’s clerks introduced him to a gentleman 
next in command; this was Mr. Robert Courtney Lewis, in a 
felicitous condition of sobriety. 

‘ ‘ I promised Mr. Channing that I would give this to the man- 
ager, Mr. Blake, in person,” the guardsman said; “but I sup 
pose it would be safe with you.” 

“ Equally safe, and you can intrust me with any verbal mes- 
sage or instructions Mr. Channing may have sent.” 

“Well, he did not send any. Yoii will be careful of that 
packet, please, as I believe^ it has something to do with Lord 
Farnbourne s death.” 

“Lord Farnbourne dead?” 

“ Yes; the poor old fellow died yesterday morning.” 

“ I am very sorry— very sorry. I have seen his lordship here 
frequently, and you. Captain St. Derrington— or should I say, 
my lord?” 

“Oh, no; nothing of the kind. There is not the slightest 
hurry, I assure you. I daresay you know the present Lord 
Farnbourne very well; he was Mr. Barry— Gerald Barry— till 
yesterday morning. Good-day.” 

“If I had magnetized him with my eyes as the Ancient 
Mariner did the wedding guest, he could not have made a more 
idiotic picture of himself,” Hillier reflected. “Of course he 
was anxious to call me ‘ my lord,’ and I daresay he is not the 
only cad I shall find ready to do the same, though if they re- 
flected a little they would know I could not have the title, even 
if L had the money. I like to sell them over it.” ~ — 


A SISTE.WS SACRIFICE. 


145 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

AT BAY. 

Had any one else made that quiet statement to Mr. Lewis, he 
wouJd have thought it an attempt at a very elaborate jest, but 
Captain St. Herrington was not the kind of man to jest with a 
stranger, and he was gone before Lewis recovered from his sur- 
prise. 

“ Lord Farnboume,” he repeated. “ Yes, it must be true, and 
this is the secret of the governor’s treatment of him. and she— 
our little, haughty friend, Jenny Delaney— is Lady Farnbourne 
beyond question, unless He Moriimar has told the truth. 1 
wonder if it is true that he married her. It would be in my 
power now to pay Master Gerald for what he said the other 
day, but I bear him no animosity. I like him on the whole, 
though he has not behaved well to me.” 

If Lewis could have kept out of the athlete’s way, he might 
have kept his secret too, but the fatal fascination of the old 
haunts was too much for him. The knowledge that he could 
tell his friend He Mortimar something so strange and startling 
was a heavier burden than his little mind could bear. He did 
not mean to tell, — he knew he was doing an unmanly thing, — 
but before the evening was out, his friend knew that the lady 
who called herself Miss Daniel was, whatever else she might be, 
the wife of the new Lord Farnbourne. 

‘‘So, perhaps, you are satisfied now that you are mistaken,” 
Lewis said, with a leer of such low cunning that the athlete sus- 
pected him at once, “ and they have been married a fortnight, 
old fellow. I did not tell you that before.” 

“It does not matter,” said De Mortimar, carelessly. “Of 
course I am mistaken, and there is an end of the business.” 

He had heard all the particulars before he said this, and he 
heard them again afterward, for with the perversity of a talk- 
ative man, Lewis grew more persistent as the athlete seemed 
indifferent. A very little would have made him go to the 
length of saying that he knew Jeannette and the music-hall 
performer were the same, but a last remnant of his sober 
senses struggled through his drink-clouded brain, and he held 
back from that. 

“And even if it were as you say,” he said, “ I do not see what 
I could do. One thing is certain — if this young fellow. Lord 
whatever he may be, is fond of her, he would not give her up 
unless I went to law with him; and how am I to go to law 
against him, Courtney? I have a hundred or two saved to keep 
me till I find another shop, and I do not know when that will 
be, for there seems a dead set in London at me; while he has— 
how much did you say ?” 

“ Thirteen thousand.” 

“ That is worth nearly seven hundred a year.” 

“ It is a year I mean — thirteen thousand a year.” 

“The fortune of a prince, you see,” said the athlete; “and 


146 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 


there is no doubt he would tight to the last, if only out of spite. 
This is, of course, supposing her to be the girl I married; but T 
think, as you say, it is merely a resemblance, and I am not 
going to trouble my head about it.” 

Mr. Lewis said it was very wise of him, and accepted it in 
good faith. Mr. de Mortimar was rather more astute than his 
friend. 

He took apartments near — not in the same street, but opposite, 
at an angle where lie could see the house she lived in. He kept 
himself so quiet that she never suspected he was there, or that 
he watched her so closely as be did. 

But he found it weary work; she so rarely went out, or if she 
did, it must liave been when he w'as away. He had seen her 
pass on the other side, and enter or alight from an omnibus at 
the coiner; and by her height, her figure, the carriage of her 
head, and her walk, he could have swmrn to her; but he was 
not sure, and he could not afford to make a mistake. 

On the eighth or ninth day of his stay he saw her very clearl5^ 
There was a lamp-post nearly in front of his window, and she 
stopped just in front of it, and stood for some five minutes in 
conversation with a gentleman. The athlete knew’ him by this 
time from inquiries he had made. The gentleman lived in the 
same house with Jeannette, and he was called Dr. Alison. 

He watched ver}^ eagerly now, and doubted no longer; this 
girl was his wife. He might be mistaken in all else, but he 
could not mistake the play of her features and the low rich 
tones of her laugh, — and how’ happy she seemed; on such 
friendly terms, too, with the young doctor, who shook hands 
with her quite affectionately when they parted. He watched 
her with the quiet satisfaction of a tiger certain of its spring, 
and five minutes after she entered the house he prepared to fol- 
low. From what Lewis had told him he knew^ that Gerald had 
not returned yet, though he was expected. He knew’ also that 
Gerald and Mr. Channing were close friends. 

“That will be it,” he muttered, “and so, my lady, we shall 
meet again. This accounts for your velvets and your furs, your 
happy, infernal, pretty face, your flight from me and your ab- 
sence from the stage; and you, — who were always so pious, 
virtuous, and moral, that you would not speak to any one of the 
company beyond the stage door, — Lord Farnboume's wdfe; yes, 
I was going to say, as much as you are mine — not so much, for 
you did marry me.” 

He w^ent across and asked for Miss Daniel. He had dressed 
in the most sober and gentlemanly attire he possessed, and he 
asked for her in a low respectful voice that made a favorable 
impression on the landlady at once. 

“ What name shall I say, sir?” 

“ A messenger from Mr. Channing, please.” 

That would have been his passport at any hour. Jeannette had 
received several letters from Gerald, and was expecting him 
hourly. Perhaps he could not return so early as he intended, 
and had sent from Mr. Channing’s office so as not to keep her in 
suspense. - - - 


A SISTER^S SACRIFTCE. 


U1 


He had told her of Lord FarDbourne’s death, and that he had 
something else to tell her, so strange that she should only hear 
it from his own lips; a very loving letter, with some mystery in 
it that made it the more charming. Perhaps he was coming 
soon and she would know what the mystery was. 

“ Let the messenger come up,” she said. “I dare say it is 
something about Gerald.” 

The messenger came, he entered hat in hand, and with his 
head held low. He stood quite still until the door was closed 
and he knew the landlady had gone. Then he raised his hand- 
some sardonic face, and looked at her with a sneering smile that 
would have served him well as Mephistopheles. 

“At last,” he said slowly, “ but pardon me, how shall I ad- 
dress you, there is such a variety of names, Jenny Delaney, Miss 
Daniel, Mrs. Gerald Barry, Lady Farnbourne, or Mrs. de^Morti- 
mar?” 

Her dread of him returned when he was near, and she was 
paralyzed with fear; she only recollected him as he had been 
when he was like this, a handsome sneering brute as ready to 
strike her as to speak, if she gave him anything he chose to 
take as the slightest provocation. She had been sitting by the 
fire, and as she sank back into the chair, she let her hand in- 
stinctively fall upon the bell. 

It occurred to him when he had gone so far that he bad not 
begun well, and that he had a better game to play ; he took a step 
nearer and changed his tone. 

“ Jenny,” he said, “ you cannot wonder at my anger when I 
find you like this, after all the misery you caused me. At the 
very worst, and I know I was bad at times, I did not deserve 
such conduct as yours, to leave me as you did, and let the shock 
fall upon me at the last moment, when I had been thinking and 
hoping that we should do better in America and be better to 
each other; but I do not believe it was your own doing.” 

This took her by surprise, but it was better than the begin- 
ning, it gave her time to collect ber thoughts and gather courage. 

“ If you ever cared for me an atom,” she said, “ you will leave 
me now; every moment you stay may mean worse than ruin to 
me. Go now, and I will see you when and where you please., 
some other time.” 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

A BROKEN DREAM. 

Me. de Mortimar answered that appeal with a silent sneer. 
He took her promise that she would see him anywhere he 
pleased as a subterfuge to get rid of him while she placed her- 
self beyond his reach again. 

“We must have an understanding first,” he said. “You 
tricked me once in a way that I find it hard to forgive even now, 
and I do not mean to lose sight of you till I know what terms 
we are to be on in future.” 

“ Terms— with you. What do you mean ?” 

“You will not find me so vindictive, Jenny, as some men 


.148 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


would be. We can pretty well cry quits about the past, I 
think. You are iny wife, you know, whatever you may have 
been to this young fellow. I want nothing to say to him. I 
do not blame him for fancying himself in love with you; 
you are pretty enough to make any man do that— prettier 
than ever — and, to make the matter short, you had better 
come back to me, and we will say nothing about what has 
happened since you left me.” 

“You told me once that I was not your wife,” the girl said, 
steadily— “ swore it, and said that you could give me proof if 
you chose.” 

“ I may have said so when I was not sober, — a man is not par- 
ticular then if a woman annoys him, — and you surely have not 
been foolish enough to go through any ceremony with this boy, 
Gerald Barry, or Lord Farn bourne ?” 

“I do not understand you when you say he is Lord Farn- 
bourne.” 

“I had it from Courtney Lewis, who had it from a Captain 
St. Derrington— another nephew of the late peer. You played 
your cards very well, Jenny, if you have married him; but you 
left me out of the game.” 

“ Let me think,” she said. “ You must give me time. Hector; 
if he, my husband, is Lord Farnbourne, 1 should be no wife for 
him, whether you were alive or dead. He must know the truth 
now.” 

“ And you have married him ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Let me congratulate your ladyship. Perhaps you will tell 
me you are fond of him!”* 

“I love him with a love you cannot comprehend,” she an- 
swered, looking at him with her large, beautiful eyes. “ When 
I first knew of your return I resolved to tell him the truth, and 
throw myself upon the protection of a friend; for however 
much he might pity me, he has such contempt for you, that to 
think of me in association with you is to turn his love into aver- 
sion.” 

“ Thank him for that. You meant to tell him the trutli, 
and take yourself away for a time — hide yourself till his anx- 
iety to know what had become of you induced him to forgive 
you. A clever bit of feminine strategy, but old, very old, 
Jenny. You meant at the same time to hide yourself from me ?” 

“ Since you ask me, I did and do.” And here she rose and 
confronted him with a look he knew so well. “ I would not, 
even if he sent me out and left me homeless, return to the worse 
than slavery my life was with you. You are a coward, and 
^YOuld like to strike me, but I am not at your mercy here; there 
are men in this house, not the pitiful things whom in your own 
lodgings you could buy with a few shillings or a glass of drink. 
You have, after all, only brought the end nearer. I knew it 
must come when I saw you with your friend.” 

When she was in his power years ago, he had always been able 
to silence her by adopting the cowardly method she bad taunted 


A SISTERS S SACRIFICE. 149 

him with; it was in his heart to doit now, but Jeannette had 
her hand upon the bell. 

‘‘Ring it,” he said, “and the people who come up shall be 
told w’hatyou are.” 

“ They will hear it from me as soon as you are gone, or while 
jou are here if you stay till I am desperate.” 

I know you always were a reckless little demon,” he said, 
“ wdien your temper is up; but I do not want to quarrel, Jenny. 
The one fact remains that you are my wife, and I did not desert 
you.” 

“ I wmuld not have left you had you not compelled me. What 
woman would give up the shelter of her husband’s home and 
work, as I did, for her bread, if she were not driven to it.” 

“ Your breadl” he repeated. “ The jacket you wore the other 
day and the rings you have oh your fingers now.” 

“They were bought for me by my husband not many weeks 
ago. I was walking miles and working hard for a few shillings 
a day, as I had done ever since I escaped from you.” 

“ You expect me to believe that, when you were always worth 
fqrty or fifty pounds a month in the profession ?” 

“ I never cared for the profession, and you might have 
heard of me had I gone back to it,” she said, with a quiet 
bitterness that stung him. “ That is why I did not make myself 
known.” 

“ Well,” he said, without any signs of anger, “ we need not 
go over the old ground, Jenny. There is no reason why an ar- 
rangement should not be made. This young lord has made you 
his wife, and you are fond of him, and you do not care for me, 
though you are the first woman who ever said so.” 

She listened, and he went on. 

“ If I take you from him you wdll come unwillingly, and though 
you are vvorth forty or fifty pounds a month, I shall not insist 
— if we make terms.” 

“ What terms do you want ?” 

“ Keep your position as Lady Farnbourne, and see me now and 
then. I shall never trouble you for money, or very rarely — when 
I happen to be out of an engagement, as I am now. Keep your 
I own counsel, and I will not let our secret trouble you. Do you 
understand me?” 

The girl laughed.' 

“I think so, Mr. de Mortimar; the proposition is so like you. 
I am to be your mistress and his wife— or your wife and his mis- 
tress — whichever way I take it, but I must be both; and I am to 
give you money as you want it. You want it merely as an 
equivalent for the forty or fifty pounds a month I am worth to 
you. I am glad to say there is no other man in your profession, 
—not the lowest mountebank who plays at a country fair, — 
would have made such a suggestion.” 

“ Be careful,” he said, between his teeth, and his face was hot 
with shame and rage. “ You may go too far, even here.” 

“ How it would suit you,” she went on,“ to have, a titled 
lady at your mercy,— to Speak of as your mistress, or ctaifn as 
your wife, just as the mood might suit you, you miseiable cow- 


150 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


ard. If I had the strengtli of a man I would not answer you in 
words. I would give my life for one day of my husband’s love, 
and T would rather throw myself in the river than be your wife 
for an hour.” 

He muttered a savage oath, and sprung toward her. He 
seized her wrist suddenly, but not before she had time to ring 
the bell and give a cry. 

It was answered so suddenly that the man who came could 
not liave bad time to mount the stairs. He entered from the 
back drawing-room, and the gymnast knew the tall figure and 
pale, stern face were those of Gerald Barry. 

What passed in the next few minutes was done so quickly 
that Jeannette did not see how it happened; but there was a 
brief, fierce struggle, and then she saw the powerful figure of 
the gymnast rise in the air and descend to the floor with a fear- 
ful crash. The sound brought up Dr. Alison. 

“ You may leave the room,” Gerald said, with unnatural 
calmness. “ I will see you presently, when I have settled with 
this man. You have nothing to explain; I heard enough.” 

He had not touched her; he simply drew his arm from her 
hand when she clung to him, and bowed as he pointed to the 
door; he opened it for her, and closed it after her, and with the 
same dull quiet spoke to Alison. 

“ Is he dead ?” he asked, 

“No; nor yet stunned, but quite helpless. Give me some 
water and what you may have in the shape of stimulant. He 
will be some time recovering.” 

In this, however, Mr. de Mortimar undeceived him. He had 
been taught so well to fall that habit become an instinct, and 
when he felt himself going this instinct helped him. He lay 
quite quiet while the young doctor administered some brandy. 
In a very few minutes he tried to rise. Mr. Alison helped him, 
and placed him in a chair. 

He looked at Gerald with a sullen vindictiveness that no one 
would have expected of the man. 

“ You are a doctor?” he said to Alison. 

“ I am a doctor— yes.” 

“ And I am the man they call the Lion Athlete; my bread, as 
you knew, depends upon my physical capability to fulfill my 
engagements. This fellow, Gerald Barry, or Lord Farnbourne, 
has injured me badly- it is ray* spine.” 

“ You are certainly shaken badly, but we cannot say how far 
you are injured yet. Your spine is not broken, and the injuries 
to it will not develop themselves for some days.” 

The gymnast nodded slowly. 

“I call you to witness,” he went on, “ that I was only speak- 
ing to my own wife, when he came in, grappled with me, and 
threw me, as you heard, before I was prepared; only speaking 
to my own wife, who ran away from me five years ago — my 
wife. Miss Daniel people call her here; she was Jenny Delaney 
when I married her. I saw her the other day by accident with 
him, and I foimd her here. I w^anted to forgive her for leaving 
me, and all that may have happened since; we had words be- 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


151 


cause she would not return to me, and then he came in. He must 
have been listening in the next room. You heard what he did, 
before a word was spoken.” 

The young doctor looked grave. There was an air of truth 
about this, although it might be only a part of the truth, and 
Gerald said nothing in reply — he only went to the door and 
called Jeannette. 

“Poor child!” John Alison thought, “there is the story of 
a tragedy here, and between these two men she will have little 
mercy.” 

“ Jeannette,” Gerald said, “ that man tells me you were mar- 
ried to him — that you are the Jenny Delaney of whom we have 
spoken more than once. Is it true ?” 

Jeannette, with bowed head, replied, “ It is.” 

“You need say no more; I heard the rest from Mr. Moss. 
Now, Mr. de Mortimar, if you are well enough to go, you may 
leave my house. You claim this lady as your wife — I claim her 
as mine. It is for the law to decide between us; until that is 
done she will remain under my care.” 

He felt Jeannette’s hand creep to his arm, but he did not touch 
it or remove it; he did not look at her. John Alison alone saw 
the agonized wistfulness in her face — saw the construction she 
put upon Gerald’s words, and knew what her disappointment 
would be. 

“ He is a gentleman, and will defend her from the man she 
left,” he thought to himself, “ but that is all he means— the rest 
is at an end between them.” 

“You have plenty of money, I know. Lord Farnbourne,” said 
De Mortimar; “ but I believe there is some justice to be got by a 
poorer man. I shall try, at all events.” 

Gerald smiled with as much bitterness as contempt as the 
gymnast rose, helped by John Alison’s kind arm. 

“ As for her ladyship, if you are fond of her, as I hope you 
are, you can be proud of her as well,— if you get her'from me.” 

Dr. Alison drew the gymnast away, and took him down-stairs. 
Throughout the whole scene he had been sorry for Jeannette, 
and felt that, even if all he had heard was true, he should not 
care for her the less. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

“IT MAY BE FOREVER.” 

When they were alone,— those two young hearts, so sorely 
stricken,— Gerald turned to her with infinite kindness and pity; 
he placed bis hand on her shoulder. 

“ Jeannette,” he said, “ I am very sorry.” 

She turned a tearless face toward him, so blanched and woe- 
worn that it was scarcely to be recognized as her own. 

“What am I to do, Gerald, what are you going to do with 
me?” 

“My poor child, there is the question indeed, why did you 
not tell me the truth ?” 

“ I loved you, Gerald, and I was afraid if I told you the truth» 


153 JL SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 

I should lose you ; you spoke so bitterly of these people to whom 
I belonged once, T knew you would discard me if you found out 
the truth; but I wanted your love only for a little while, I never 
looked beyond.” 

My darling— I must call you so in spite of this man’s claim 
and my own duty that is forced upon me — I came back so full 
of pleasure to tell you of the change; I went into the other 
room, when I heard a man’s voice and yours, and stopped 
meclianically, when I heard you say, ‘ what terms do you 
want?’ I heard his proposition and I heard your answer, Jean- 
nette, — true woman as you are, though you did deceive me, — 
and all my dreams of your surprise or delight went into dust.” 

“ Gerald, my love,” she said, with a quiet as wonderful as his, 
“my husband, for I never gave a wife’s love to him, T want to 
place myself entirely in your hands. You have a right to be 
angry, but you will not be unmerciful. I have been very dear to 
you, I know I have; and I believe you will think with kindness 
of me in spite of this great disappointment. I should have told 
you all the truth to-night — that was my intention from the 
dioment I knew this man had returned. I should have wj*itten 
it and gone away, and you would never have Seen me again; 
but now you have heard for yourself, and perhaps it is better so.” 

“ Perhaps; if anything can be better in such a case. My first 
care must be to place you in safety, and I want you, Jeannette, 
to promise me that you will never pain me by hiding yourself 
away from any mistaken sense of self-sacrifice or duty. I be- 
lieve you fully when you say that you deceived me because you 
were afraid to lose my love; and if you were free I would look 
upon no other woman as my wife.” 

“Yes, you might forgive me, dear; but I could never be to 
you what I was. If I had not cared for you so much I would 
not have let you persuade me into marriage. I knew you were 
more than you seemed, and I should not have been fit to be 
your wife now.” 

“Why r 

“ You are Lord Farn bourne.” 

“ The news seems to have traveled swiftly, but the title has 
not changed me, I hope. I am — and always shall be to you — 
the Gerald Barry whom you loved.” 

“ And now we must part, Gerald.” 

“For a time,” Gerald said, “ we must not see each other; but 
I must place you beyond the reach of that man. For a time, 
Jeannette, we must part.” 

“ It must be forever,” she said. “ I could not bear to see you 
on any other terms than those we have been on. I can never 
be your wife, and I cannot be anything else, so we must part, 
and forever.” 

“ For a time at least. It is not for us to say what may be or- 
dained by the Almighty. If it be His intention that we are to 
meet, we shall. Now promise me— for something tells me you 
have it in your mind — that you will take no rash step to keep 
away from me as you did from that man.” 

“ Tell me what you wish me to do ?” 


A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE. 


m 

“I shall have to take Mr. Channing into my confidence. I 
can put a sum of money in his hands; or, better still, give you 
a separate banking account.” 

“I would rather you left it to Mr. Channing; we could al- 
ways hear of each other through him. You, in your new life, 
w ill have so many things to take you about and fill your time. 
You have not traveled yet,” she added, with a sob; she could 
not help thinking of their own plan of going abroad to spend a 
real honeymoon; “ and if I were ill he could send to you direct, 
for I should like to see you, Gerald, if anything did happen to 
me.” 

“It shall be Mr. Channing if you wish,” he said, not replying 
to the words that moved him, “ and he must know all now. 
Can w^e depend upon our friend below to keep this quiet for a 
day or two ?” 

“ Mr. Alison ? Yes, I am sure you may.” 

“ Then I will speak to him at once, not that I care if the 
whole matter is made public — secrecy is w orse than useless. It 
was a curse to my parents, and might have clung to me. If I 
can set you free, Jeannette ” 

“You would marry me again,” she said, filling up the pause. 
“ I would not have it, Gerald; it would not do in your society. 
If we were plain commoners, as we were, the world would for- 
get the scandal and ourselves; but you could not have Lady 
Farnbourne pointed at as the girl w ho ran away from her hus- 
band, a trapeze performer, and married you w’hile he was aw'ay. 
A title is a fatal help to memory in those things.” 

“ We will see,” he said. “ Mr. Channing shall judge for us. 
I w'ill just go down and speak to Mr. Alison — I suppose, for the 
sake of etiquette, I should say Dr. Alison.” 

“ He will not care. And Gerald ” 

He went back to her. 

“Could you — would it be very wrong if you were to take me 
out just this evening, for a few' pleasant hours such as we had 
before you went to Ashford Lynn? How strange it was that 
T should have had a presentiment that something sad would 
come of your visit there.” 

“ Sadness did not come from there. Jeannette. Yes, we w ill 
go out this evening; w'e used to go when we were friends only, 
and we can go as friends to night.” 

“ Will you be long down-stairs?” 

“ Not many minntes.” 

He did not trouble to think of her question, but went down- 
stairs. The young doctor was at home, as usual, reading the 
Edinburgh Medical Journal of sixty or seventy years ago. The 
human generation of that day must have possessed extraordinary 
vitality if they survived after such treatment as they had in the 
cases quoted. 

“ Come in, Mr. Barry.” Alison said. “ I am not used to your 
title yet. I am glad you have come, for I wanted to speak to 
you about that extraordinary person you had up-stairs and the 
statement he made. Is it true that you are married to Miss 
Daniel ?” 


154 


A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE. 


“ Quite true; the world would have known it in a few days, 
and I want to ask you, though the request may be perfectly 
needless, not to let his statement go further till I have seen my 
solicitor.” 

“ Till I have 3’ our own authority. How did you come to give 
him such a fall ?” 

‘•We closed, and I had to use my strength, such as it is; I 
threw him bodily.” 

“ It’s well for 3’ou that you did, for he is even now a man of 
magnificent muscular formation, and in a lengthened struggle 
you must have done each other some considerable damage. 
\Vhat is the meaning of his claim to be Miss Daniel’s husband 

“ Just as you heard.” 

“ He told me a long, sympathetic story, which I did not half 
believe, for Miss Daniel would not have left him without cause. 
I have been in the house some years, and I know how hard she 
has worked for little pay. You will set her free from him?” 

•‘If possible.” 

“ You will find it difficult, aS I need not tell you who under- 
stand the law. You see, she left him, and there is no evidence 
that she used what would constitute reasonable precaution to 
prove that he was dead before contracting a second marriage.” 

“ Tell me your idea.” 

“ On the other hand, he took no special pains to find her to 
induce her to return; and then much would depend upon the 
manner of his own life since he went away. The worse it has 
been, the better would be her chance of obtaining a separa- 
tion.” 

“Not a divorce?” 

“lam afraid not, except that he was already married when 
he married her. My own impression is that he w’as, for I re- 
member the man perfectly, and I attended him for an accident 
some years ago, and then he had a young girl with him whom 
he called his wife.” 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

HER LETTER. 

When Gerald had heard what Dr. Alison had to say he did not 
set much store by it. Alison, an assistant at the time to a skill- 
ful surgeon, had attended the gymnast for an accident — one of 
the many incidental to the practice of his avocation; he had 
slipped by a hair’s breadth in a leap from one bar to another, and 
dislocated his ankle badly in his fall. 

“He may have had a companion whom be called his wife,” 
Gerald said; “ relationships of that kind are as common to his 
class as to any other; or he may have been married, and the 
girl may be dead.” 

“ To the last I can certainly say no,” Mr. Alison observed. 
“ When I was younger I used to go to these places rather fre- 
quently, and until the full dignity of M.D. came upon me I was 
not too proud to spend an hour in one of the halls. I rarely have 
time for a theater. I cannot sit out a long piece, but I can en- 


A SISTERS S SACRIFICE. 


155 


joy ray pipe for an hour at a music-hall, and I have seen the 
girl more than once. I have seen her within the last six 
months.” 

“Then she cannot be his wife, or he would not have married 
Miss Daniel,” Gerald said; “that, however, is not the question 
now. I will keep her from him no matter what it may cost me 
to fight his claim.” 

“ I do not think he will trouble you with it.” 

“ But he may trouble her.” 

“ Not since he has found out the kind of man he has to deal 
witii. I am sorry for the whole affair, Mr. Barry; that scoun- 
drel has spoiled her life in every way.” 

Gerald assented to that with a sigh. Thinking over it calmly, 
speaking of it like this with Alison, with only the distance of a 
staircase between her and himself, was very different from 
thinking and speaking of it when she was with him. 

He gave that evening to herself; they went to hear some music, 
and returned early. It was strange and pitiful to see what a 
restraint had come between them even then, his very tenderness 
had something almost distant in it. She did not take her tone 
from him, but she submitted to his, and it was that of a grave, 
elder brother's or guardian’s; anything but that of the impas 
sioned lover-husband whose bride had been all the world to him 
so short a time before. 

“You will promise me,” he said, “ that you will do nothing, 
Jeannette, till I have seen Mr. Channing. You will remain 
liere with your friends the Hormsbys, till he has seen you, for I 
have it still in my mind that you may in your regret take your- 
self away.” 

“You know I will not, Gerald; lam quite content to leave 
myself in Mr. Channing’s hands.” 

“ Then all will go well.” 

“Yes; if you let it be as he may arrange with me.” 

“ Of that you may be sure. He will consult my wishes, and 
do what is best for both.” 

So they parted for the night, with a silent lingering embrace, 
and Jeannette took her bitter heartache to bed. She knew bet- 
ter than he did what would come of it; he had defended her, 
forgiven her, and would take care of her, but not in all the days 
to come would his faith be restored or the old love be what it 
had been. 

As may be imagined, Gerald’s night was devoted to bitter, 
wretched thought. 

It was the second ^eat trial of his life; the first was when he 
heard his mother's history from Mr. Channing; but this might 
have stricken him more deeply had not the first hardened him. 
It was sad to have to accept the easy philosophy Mr. Lascelles 
Moss had favored him with — that all women are very much 
alike, and it was better to take and keep the one you had, just 
as she was, and make the best of her. 

Think of it as Gerald would, soften it as he might, there the 
bitter truth remained. His mother had deceived his father, 
Jeannette had deceived him. Her plea that it was out of her 


156 


A SISTER^ S sacrifice. 


love, disarmed his anger and won his forgiveness. Her brav^ 
defiance of the brute who made her such a shameful offer as the 
price of her secrecy, won Gerald's admiration; but for the rest 
there was nothing to be said. He shuddered at the thought that 
she whom he had looked upon as a pure young girl, whose first 
love he had won, had been the wife of such a man as the hand- 
some ruflSan he had struck down that day. 

He went to Lincoln’s Inn in the morning. The mysterious 
influence that belongs to rank, more especially w^hen the rank 
is worn well, made itself felt before he arrived, and was shown 
on his appearance, and, in spite of himself, there was an inde- 
finable alteration in himself. He was as genial as ever, with 
more courtesy and less reserve perhaps than had belonged to 
Gerald Barry; but he accepted the increased respect as so much 
homage simply due to him. 

Robert Courtney Lewis, knowing nothing of what had taken 
place, — having indeed only a very dim recollection of the many 
indiscretions he had let his tongue commit when with De Mor- 
timar, — rose to shake hands with and congratulate him; but the 
look of calm contempt he met froze him back to his seat; and as 
soon as Gerald had passed into the private room, Mr. Lewis took 
his hat and went to get something for his nerves — they were 
getting more out of order every day. 

I did not expect you quite so soon, my lord,” the solicitor 
said. “ You were going, I thought, to take a week’s holiday 
and rest.” 

“ Rest!” repeated Gerald, bitterly, “ that only comes with hap- 
piness, Mr. Channing, and that for me would be the idlest dream. 
Will you try to please me by never using that miserable title to 
me?” 

“ It is a title of which you should be proud,” was the grave 
reply. “ It was worn last by a noble gentleman.” 

“ And is worn now by one who may be said to have dishonored 
it already. I do not want, however, to hear it from your lips. 
When I cease to be Gerald to you I shall cease to look upon you 
as my adviser and friend.” 

“ Well, my boy, you shall have your own way, as I am in- 
clined to think you always do — sometimes I fear at your own 
cost. Now tell me what it is, for I see you are in trouble?” 

Gerald threw himself wearily into a chair, and without a 
change of tone or break of voice, rather as if he had been speak- 
ing of another, told the whole story. Whether Mr. Channing 
was surprised, angry, or sorry, he could not say. The fine face 
remained quite inscrutable, and it was some minutes before he 
spoke, but he wrote down the leading points. 

“ It is too late now’ to tell you,” he said at last, “ that if you 
had not deceived me this would not have happened. It was ex- 
actly the danger I foresaw and tried to guard against. Your 
position is a serious one, Gerald; the more so as you love the 
girl.” 

“ That is not the question now,” said Gerald,. in a tone of quiet 
resolution, “ whatever may happen, and, in spite of her decep- 
tion, Jeannette will always hold the first place in my heart. I 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


157 


have told you this because I want your help for her. It is her 
own wish that I leave her entirely in your bands.” 

‘ ‘ What are your wishes in regard to her ?” 

“ Is she in danger from this man ? Can he compel her to re- 
turn to' him, or can he prosecute her for marrying me ?” 

“As the case stands,” said Mr. Channing, “appearances are 
gravely against her. You see, she left this man informally— 
that is to say, without taking pains to obtain a legal separation. 
She did not put it within the power of the law to judge whether 
she had cause or right to leave him. She retired from her pro- 
fession, passed as a single woman, and without making inquiry, 
accepting only hearsay evidence, which is not evidence, and 
taking common rumor as if it were proved fact, married you.” 

. “ Yes.” 

“ That he can claim her there is no doubt, unless, and that is 
a weighty point, there is any foundation for what Mr. Alison 
says. The fellow, however, is cunning enough to know that 
the onus of proof rests with us. The two courses open to him 
arp these — he can claim her, if he cares to face the reasons she 
may give as to why she left him; should he shrink from that, 
he may prosecute her for bigamy. In either case your name 
would have to be brought before the public.” 

“ Well ?” 

“ Would it be well? If vve can make a compromise.” 

. “I will not have a compromise, Mr. Channing; let the fellow 
do his worst. There has been too much of secrecy and compro- 
mise in our unhappy family already.” 

“ You are right; and, that point settled, you may leave me to 
deal with Mr. de Mortimar,” he could not suppress a slight 
smile; “as for her — this poor girl — she was right when she 
elected to be left entirely in my hands. I can see her to day?” 

“ She promised to stay at home until she had seen you.” 

“ Then she will keep her word. Understand that you leave 
her to me entirely. There must be no meetings between you 
two. I will take her under my own care, and when you hear 
from her it must be through me. Do you consent ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Enough then,” said Mr. Channing; “ the case is mine, and 
when I have anything to say, you shall be told it. This, of 
course, has changed your plans.”" 

“Entirely.” 

“Why not take a tour, say for six months, or a year? You 
need not be without companions on the road.” 

Gerald shook bis head. 

“ I had arranged to go with her,” he said, quietly; “ I could 
not go without her. Now for a little business, please. What 
have you to say in regard to my arrangements?” 

“The arrangements you desired, that is to say; you wished 
me to pay Hillier St. Derrington’s debts, and place three thou- 
sand a year at his disposal. He accepts the [)ayment of his 
debts, but he will not accept the annuity.” 

“ I did not mean it as an annuity; I meant it as an income for 
him and bis — w^hy did he refuse ?” 


158 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 


“ He belongs to jour family, Gerald, and does not give his 
reasons as a rule; and he is, what I did not believe till now, a 
true-hearted gentleman.” 

“ I must speak to him myself,” said Gerald; “he is my kins- 
man and my friend, and he will not deny me. I can at least 
leave him the amount by will, and if he does not take the money 
now, let it accumulate.” 

“ Place it to his credit, and some day the temptation may be 
too much for him. We had better let matters rest in every way 
for twelve months; a year tells a story of its own.” 

“ What amount is at my disposal now?” 

“ Nearly sixty thousand pounds.” 

- “So much ?” said Gerald. 

“ It may be more. Amongst his many eccentricities, he was 
an excellent man of business, and he was wise enough to trust 
his solicitor.” 

“ How is it that he made no mention of Mrs. St. Derrington, 
and, though he mentioned all the other servants, left the oldest 
and most faithful entirely without a legacy ?” 

“ You mean Sterling by the oldest and most faithful,” said 
Channing, dryly. “If you remember, Sterling and Mrs. Der- 
rington were the only two in the room with him when he had 
that accident.” 

“Good heavens! Mr. Channing, what would you imply?” 

“That it was the poor old gentleman’s solemn belief, as it 
was your suspicion and mine, that it was done purposely. Ster- 
ling fell against the steps at her suggestion. Had the shock 
been fatal, as it might, he would have died without a will, and 
they are his next-of-kin. Half the estate would have been dis- 
sipated in fighting the question. You would have been simply 
a doubtful claimant, instead of his acknowledged, indisputable 
heir.” 

“ And so I was indirectly the cause of his death,” said Gerald, 
deeply moved, “ the poor old man. It is an easy thing to say 
now, Mr. Channing, but it is the truth, that I would rather be 
with him as I was — poring over his books, helping him with the 
dusty stores and relics of his museum, full of pleasure myself 
because I saw the pleasure it gave him — than as I am!” 

“ I know it, Gerald. He knew that you had that spirit. 
Where will you stay — not at your old rooms, of course ? Even 
if Miss Daniel were not there, Lord Farnbourne could not live 
in Pimlico lodgings, however nice they may be.” 

“ I should like to put my title in my pocket for a time at 
least, and take it out as I do my watch or my pocket handker- 
chief.” 

“ I am glad to hear you say ‘ for a time.’ The aristocrat who 
affects to despise his own rank is, in the language of tlie day, a 
cad of the dullest water. Put up at Morley’s or the Langham, 
and make Hillier St. Derrington your companion for a month 
or so. You are all that could be desired in style and bearing — 
the equal of any you may meet; but you want — pardon me — the 
tone that association alone can give. To be at home with Wes4 
End people, you must know them at home,” 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 


159 


“ Is their tone so desirable?** 

“ To YOU it is indispensable. Do you know where to find Cap- 
tain Hillier?” 

“lean hear of him at his club, and should like to see him. 
Do you go to my — Jeannette to-day ?” 

“ Yes; and you had better come to me to-morrow. We shall 
have made our arrangements by that time; then, if you let 
things shape their own course, without your help or interfer- 
ence, they will come right. Just now you feel it deeply, I 
know, but time will be your friend. Twelve months hence you 
will look back with a different heart, Gerald. You have no idea 
how much may be done in twelve months by time alone. As I 
have said, a year always tells a story of its own.” 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE STORY OF A YEAR. 

It was rather late next day when Gerald saw Mr. Channing, 
and that gentleman handed him a letter quietly. 

“ You were going to ask me whether I had seen her and what 
passed,” be said, “and that will tell you all. I may only say 
that, apart from our fixed arrangement, I am not responsible 
for any suggestion or proposition of hers. The arrangement is 
that I take her in my care.” 

“lam satisfied,” said Gerald, “with any arrangement you 
may have made.” 

He read the letter then. It was exactly what he had expected, 
but he thought of her the more tenderly, because her own true 
heart came out in every line. He could picture to himself the 
sweet and plaintive face she had worn while writing it, think- 
ing of him — thinking for him— all the time. 

“ I have seen Mr. Channing,” she began, “and no words can 
tell you how kind and thoughtful he was. I thought he would 
be angry, but it was quite the other way. He seemed so sorry 
for me. I wished, dear, as I always wished, that you had told 
him from the first. I do not mean it as a reproach when I say 
that if you had told him I should have told you about myselfi 
Yet, I do not know; we loved each other, whatever may come 
now. Even if I never see you again till I die, I shall always 
find comfort in remembering that we loved each other. 

“ Mr. Channing will take care of me, and see that T am not 
troubled; and he thinks with me, that we had better not meet 
or correspond in any way. And if I am ill, or anything 
should happen to make me want to see you very much, I am to 
tell him, and he will tell you. But what I wish you to under- 
stand most of all is this: you must forget that I was ever any- 
thing more to vou than the poor little Jeannette you were so 
kind to. Mr. Channing tells me that if what Mr. Alison has 
said is proved to be the truth, I am still legally your wife, and 
have the right to bear your name and title. 

“Now, my darling, although it may be so— and I suppose it 
must be so— pray dp not let that for a momept ipterfere with 


160 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 


anything that you may do — anything that may be demanded of 
you by your rank. You must consider that, at best, 1 was but 
the daughter of a tradesman, only educated in the ordinary 
way, as a lady’s-maid or governess might be. I am in no way 
fit to be your wife; and though I know you would have borne 
with me, and been kind to me. still there must have come the 
time when you would have seen me by the side of others, and 
been very sorry that you had not waited. I myself know that 
in the old days, when I have gone out to play or sing, or give 
lessons, I have felt the distance between me and the ladies of 
the house. I am speaking of genuine ladies, and not such per- 
sons as the one jou. went to see for me. Some of them may be 
very kind — some of them are — but however rich they may be, 
there is an immeasurable difference between the wives and 
daughters of merely moneyed men and those of the aristocracy. 
Was it not you who said that it takes five generations to make 
a gentleman ora racehcn'se? From what I have seen of gentle- 
men, I am sure it is true. 

“ I shall always remember, dear, that we loved each other. 
Nothing, thank Heaven, can take that recollection from me — if 
I had to go through it all again, and could know to the very 
hour when the blow was coming that would take you from me, 
I would go through it again. I have lived for you — with you, 
Gerald; I shall have to live for you — without you. If the man 
who claims me were dead to-morrow, I would never live with 
another, and I cannot come back to you. 

“ There is so much more I should like to say, but my heart 
seems to fill, and I can only ask you to leave me to myself till I 
have grown more resigned. Perhaps w’e may meet some day. 
As you said to me, our fate is in the hands of Heaven, and it is 
not for us to say whether we meet again or not. I am sure I 
shall see you, but you will not see me, and I shall think ‘ That 
is my love, my Gerald, who loves me and will love me always,’ 
and then I shall steal away content. 

“ I am glad you have placed me in the hands of so kind and 
strong a friend as Mr. Channing. I feel as if nothing could 
make me afraid, while I am in his care. He is going to find a 
home for me with some friend of his own, who will treat me 
like a daughter; but I am not to tell you where I am going. 

“I should like ” 

Here some lines had been hurriedly obliterated and he could 
not decipher them. The only words he could make out were 
the last, 

“ . . . . and I am sure even then you will not forget 

“Your own Jeannette.” 

“Even then. Even what?” he said to himself, more troubled 
by the few indecipherable lines than all the rest of the letter. 
“ ‘ I am sure even then you will not forget,’ even then! What 
can she mean? I must write if only to ask her that.” 

“You would like to see this,” he said, to Mr. Channing. 

“ Thank you, no,” was the reply. “ I was with her when she 
wrote it. I know the substance, Gerald, though I do not know 


A SlSTER^S sacrifice. 


i6l 


a word of it. I was with her when she wrote it,” he repeated, 
“ and it is many years since my voice faltered and my eyes 
grew dim, yet I only saw her face, and she did not speak.” 

“ I know — I know,” said Gerald, with a passionate regret and 
a longing in his lieart; “ but what can I do now ?” 

“ Nothing; all is done. The girl belongs to me. I take her in 
my care and watch over her as if she were my own daughter; 
so let it rest for one tvvelvemontli; until the year has told its 
story.” 

“ Why do you think of that so continually ?” 

“ Because I believe in anniversaries, and in a year there are 
so many changes.” 

In a lighter mcod Gerald would have smiled to think that a 
man of Mr. Channing’s mind could entertain a superstition of 
any kind, but the repetition of the idea impressed him, and 
when the year had ended he had to confess that the story it 
had told was stranger than any he could have conceived or 
credited. 

The friendship begun at Ashford Lynn with Hillier was linked 
more firmly in London. In spite of his self-contained, almost 
impregnable pride, he saw now how much more difficult his 
way would have been without the guardsman’s kindly aid. The 
sudden and hard reverse of fortune did not affect him an atom 
outwardly; he was just as elegant and tranquil, looked as well, 
dressed as well, and had the same sweet temper, the same 
languid drawl. Later on, when he was on active service, in one 
of those dangerous and expensive little wars England delights 
in, it was told of him that he rallied his men from a momentary 
panic and took them through a furnace and a storm made up 
of fiery bush and hailing bullets, and only said when it was 
over: 

“ By Jove! I had no idea that the niggers were such beggars 
to fight.” 

For he went into active service, exchanged into a regiment of 
Light Horse when he knew it was going out, and was Colonel 
Hillier St. Herrington, V.C., when he returned. He went in 
spite of Helen and in spite of Gerald, who tried most earnestly 
to prevent him. 

If you like to put me down for three thousand a year, I can- 
not help it, of course,” he said, “ and if you let it accumulate 
from the present moment, I cannot help it either. It will be 
something for Helen to get on with, and some day I may want a 
little of it; but the time is come, my dear fellow, for me to show 
what there is in me. I have been very properly sold after wait- 
ing for a dead man’s shoes, and now I shall get a pair of my own. 
You have paid my debts, old fellow, and behavcul altogether like 
a kinsman and a chum; and before anything more is done for 
me, I will do something for myself. I tell you what you can do 
for me, though.” 

“Tell me.” 

“ Look after Helen.” 

“ I am afraid the lady will not thank you for giving her such 
a guardian, and we are not likely to meet.” 


162 


A SISTEIVS SACRIFICE. 


“Ob, yes, you will; there are not many of us, and we are 
obliged to meet — very properly too. As for her not liking you, 
she is too sensible a girl not to find out what a good fellow you 
are, and then you will be all right, you know. Besides, I shall 
tell her to take care of you, by Jove! I should find you a bache- 
lor if I did not come back for twenty j’^ears. By the Avay, Ger- 
ald, not a word about the money business to any one.” 

“That, I take it, is strictly between ourselves.” 

“ So I want it to be; as for Helen, I shall speak to her.” 

He did speak to her, and strangely enough, she accepted the 
proposition in good faith, and Gerald found himself, against his 
will, the guardian of a beautiful woman who in his utmost soul 
he knew detested him. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

WHEN THE YEAR ENDED. 

Though Gerald had little faith in the kindliness of Helen St. 
Herrington’s feelings toward him, he found that the position he 
w’as placed in became of very great service to him. Hillier had 
done much by taking him to the clubs, but Helen was his pass- 
port to the heart of society. A bachelor who has no female rel- 
atives to help him must needs be of irreproachable character to 
be placed on the free list of the fireside. 

It was very pleasant, the homage that was rendered as a trib- 
ute to his beautiful kinswoman; he was invited wherever she 
went, and that was everywhere. He noticed that after a time 
they made way for him, and he saw that his advent was always 
welcome to her; yet he could not rid himself of the idea that her 
first feeling for him had been one of intense dislike, and he did 
not forget that a woman’s intense dislike is very apt to turn the 
other way. 

People began to talk about them, as he found not a little to his 
dismay, but still with a sense of flattered pride. Evelyn Smyth- 
arra, a harmless young club man, who made Hillier his model 
and adored him, brought this to Gerald’s knowledge first, but he 
had been dimly conscious of it before. 

“I suppose we shall lose you again?” his young friend sug- 
gested, it was that period in the middle of autumn when san- 
guine English people begin to expect a little summer. “Tor- 
quay, is it not?” 

“ I do not remember having spoken of going to Torquay.” 

“No! well I heard the Herringtons were going and thought it 
was understood.” 

“ Really I do not see why it should be understood,” said Ger- 
ald, slightly annoyed, “ what is the connecting link ?” 

“My dear fellow, why ask me that? You have monopolized 
the lady ever since Hillier went away. You ride with her, walk 
with her, accompany her everywhere; they went to Brighton 
early in the season, you were there a week afterward; they re- 
turned, so did you; they are here, you are here; they are going; 
inferentially you are going.” 


A SlSTER^S SAORTFlCE. 


168 


“ Inferentially perhaps; positively, I do not know. But I was 
not aware the world took so much interest in me.” 

“In you, good gracious, no,” exclaimed Evelyn. “ My dear 
Farnbourne, the world cares no more for you than it does for 
me; the world never does care for men, but it has associated 
you so long and so closely with Miss St. Derrington that it has 
made up its mind you belong to her; and when it makes up its 
mind like that, my dear Farnbourne, you see you really ought 
to belong to her; in fact, you see, there is nothing for it but you 
must belong to her.” 

“ Leaving Miss St. Derrington out of the question ?” 

“Ob, that is all settled. We arranged that long ago, and we 
expect it. Everybody expects it. She expects it,” said Mr. 
Smytharra, with unanswerable emphasis. “ Why, if I said that 
you had told me it was not so, they would not believe me.” 

“ And so in perfect innocence we have been given to each 
other,” Gerald observed, “ by the gossip- mongers, who forget 
that Miss St. Derrington is my relative, and five years my 
senior, and, more than all, that she is or was engaged to her 
cousin.” 

“ Hillier himself disclaimed that the first time he heard it 
mentioned. We did think there would be something of the 
kind when things were as they were, you know; but h^ told us 
we were quite mistaken.” 

“As you are with me!” said Gerald, quietly. “You will 
check this stupid rumor, please; it will be as strange to Miss 
St. Derrington as it w'as to me, and more unpleasant.” 

But it set him to thinking. He knew that all the love and 
tenderness there might be in Helen’s nature was given to her 
cousin, and that whomsoever else she might marry would have 
a very proud and beautiful lady’ at the head of his house,— one 
who would wear his name well, and keep it spotless; but never 
give him, or pretend to give, an atom of her heart. 

In the world he helped to inhabit now that did not seem to 
matter; and, after all, he thought, what did it matter? He him- 
self bad no love to give. Poor little Jeannette was still a very 
tender memory with him, though nearly a year had passed since 
he had seen her,— nearly a year since they passed that sadly 
quiet evening together after he overheard her interview with 
Mr. de Mortimar. 

He had heard from her, and would have seen her, but re- 
frained at her own request. She had written to him more than 
once, — simple letters, with a tone of pathos in them that made 
itself felt in spite of her careful wording. She asked him not 
to see her again; it would be better for them both. The man 
who had come between them would neither renounce his claim 
nor enforce it; but Mr. Channing had taken care that he should 
never molest her. 

“ And I hope you will not waste your life or mar your future 
in any way by a thought of me!” she wrote. “ The conscious- 
ness that I did deceive you would always be a pain to me, even 
if we were together as we used to be. You gave me every 


A StSTEI^S sacrifice. 


m 

chance of telling you the truth, and yet I hid it from you; and 
every Consideration, apart from this, will tell you we must 
never think of a reunion I have no right to, and which would 
he unwise. I am quite contented as I am. Mr. Channing’s 
friends are very kind, and I might say T am almost happy. I 
hear of you frequently, and I have seen you once. You were 
with a very beautiful, proud-looking lady — Miss St. Derrington, 
I imagined. I should have been more pleased if you had not 
looked so calm and stern. I could not help thinking that it was 
my fault, for then you were in your proper place — a gentleman 
amongst gentlemen. You were more at liome than in our old 
rooms, though some people thought them quite grand. 

“I should always like to hear from you. 1 know it is a weak- 
ness, and I do not think Mr. Channing approves of it, but I can- 
not help it. There can be no harm in a few lines now and 
then.” 

Tliis time she signed herself Jeannette simply, and the letter 
closed abruptly. He thought in this and others that he had 
from her it always seemed that she wanted to say more, but 
wrote under strong self-restraint. 

It was quite true that Mr. de Mortimar would neither relin- 
quish his claim nor enforce it. Whatever intention he may 
have had was altered by an interview with Mr. Channing. That 
gentleman took the initiative, and went to see him. What 
transpired there Gerald was not told, but the substance, as he 
heard it from Mr. Channing’s lips, amounted to this: 

“ I gave him the alternative,” said Mr. Channing, “ to com- 
mence proceedings at once or sign a deed of separation, on con- 
dition that he was never called upon to contribute toward her 
support. He talked about compensation for the loss of her 
services, and I told him he had no legal right to make her earn 
money or to take money she might choose to earn. I told him 
also, that if he wished to compel her to return to him I was 
quite willing, on your part, to oppose an action. It would then 
be necessary for me to make a searching inquiry into his ante- 
cedents and character.. Perhaps he thought I should prove too 
much, for he accepted my conditions, complaining to the last 
that he vvas the victim of oppression — money against right. 
But I left him with the document duly signed by him and wit- 
nessed by our friend Dr. Alison.” 

This was satisfactory so far, but he could not rid himself of 
the idea that Jeannette still belonged to him — he did not feel 
that he would be justified in marrying another woman, even if 
he met one that he cared for. It made him moody and discon- 
tented. Some men in his condition would have grown reckless, 
but that was not his way. As his sense of disappointment grew 
less keen, and change and absence did their work, he began to 
take counsel with himself. 

The past was dead, the present a blank; the habits and tastes 
of a man about town did not belong to him: for club life he 
cared very little, and dissipation he could not comprehend; it 
seemed to him at once senseless and degrading. He had no fixed 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


165 


abode in London. The late Lord Farnbourne had made the 
house at Ashford Lynn his home, and on the rare occasions of 
his visits to the metropolis put up at a private hotel. Gerald 
went to the same hotel, and had the satisfaction of being told 
that it was known as the Antediluvian; that the men who 
stayed there were admitted at once into the honorable order of 
old fogies, and that if he did not wear high collars, thick and 
broad black satin stocks, fastened behind with liooks and eyes, 
cashmere and patent leather button boots, and let the brim of 
his hat rest on the nape of his neck, he would lose caste in the 
establishment. 

It certainly was old-fashioned — the proprietor, the w^aiters, 
and the furniture belonged to a past generation. They had no 
pretty chambermaids here; their place was supplied by staid, 
middle-aged housemaids, any one of whom would have been 
eminently fitted for the position of matron at an institution for 
innocent sinners. In these days of grand hotels and bachelor 
rooms, as cruelly expensive, as inconvenient, it was a relief to 
find a house not too large or too small for its purpose, and 
toned, as this w^as, with a high, old, cozy air of luxury without 
pretense or ostentation. 

Gerald stayed here always when in town, saw^ a few friends, 
Mr. Channing and Dr. Alison amongst the number, but went 
very little into the world. He missed Hillier St. Derrington 
very much. The guardsman had come to him in a manner that 
made him the first friend of his manhood, and the rest were 
empty shadows of him. Now that he was gone Gerald felt pain- 
fully conscious of something wanting in his life. Hillier was 
gone, Jeannette lost to him; he seemed quite alone in the 
world. 

He was not unmindful of bis charge, but he rarely went to 
her house; he could not bear to meet her mother; be could never 
look upon that Roman-nosed, gaunt matron without thinking of 
the untimely end that had come to the poor old gentleman to 
whom he liad grown so deeply attached. The anniversary of 
that fatal day w’as very near, and Gerald, looking back, reflected 
what a long, dull year it had been. 

“ The story of a year has told me very little,” he meditated. 
“I have achieved nothing, and wdiat perhaps is worse, desired 
nothing. I have neither sister, nor brother, nor friend; my 
early education and the associations that belonged to it have 
quite unfitted me for the world I move in now. Hillier is a 
happier man than I am — happier even as he is, and he would, 
at least, have enjoyed life if the money I have had gone to 
him.” 

That morning he had read the last dispatches from the seat of 
war, and saw his friend’s gallant conduct mentioned, not for the 
first time since he had been out. He was colonel now\ He had 
gone right into active service and made his way to the front 
from the outset. He had already acquired the name of a fort- 
unate soldier. He never failed, and he seemed to bear a charmed 
life, He had gone into the Guards because it was the thing, ^nd 


166 A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 

now that he had made serious work of it he fell in love with bis 
profession. 

“I shall stick to the service now,” he wrote to Gerald. “I 
never knew what real enjoyment was till I came out here. I 
have lost a few chums and my favorite horse. He was shot 
clean through the head, poor fellow; so, you see, if he had taken 
another stride the ball that killed him would have gone through 
me. It is warm work sometimes. The black beggars do fight 
hard, and they have no sense of courtesy. It is not a bit like 
civilized warfare. You never know when they are coming till 
they are within shot, and then it is give and take as hard as you 
can. 

“ You are taking care of Helen, I hope. I should like to hear 
that she had married well, but her chance is not worth much 
now. She has no money, and at five or six-and-twenty a woman 
in her position does not have a wide range of choice. An old 
man might marry her for her beauty, but she is too good and 
proud for that; a very young one might for the same reason; but 
there again, it is awkward. For myself I shall never marry 
now, and I hope she will not waste her time thinking of me. 
It was hard for her; she would have been just in her right 
place at Ashford Lynn. 

“ How do you get along with her? You say very little, and 
she does not say much. She likes you, but thinks you rather 
stiff— unapproachable she calls it; but then you are intellectual, 
distinguished, and original. You met the prime minister at the 
Baroness Dunord’s, and he said there was something remarka- 
ble about you, the instinct of statesmanship, he called it. 
Helen tells me this; you never say a word about* yourself. 
Rather cheeky, though, for a youngster like you to discuss 
politics with the prime minister in the very center of the high- 
est political and diplomatic circle we have in London. Her 
summary of you is that you would be a difficulli man to 
love, but one of whom any woman would be proud; and you 
are very old for your age— not complimentary the last, but 
true. 

“ Heaven only knows when the campaign will be over. We 
cannot get the beggars into a good set engagement, but we are 
quietly pinning them up in a corner, and unless they submit en- 
tirely, we must exterminate them. War must be followed out 
by the law of nature— the survival of the fittest. Whether we 
are right or wrong is out of the question now^you would be no 
more inclined to discuss it than we are, if you were out here. 
When I do come back I hope you will be one of the first to 
shake hands with me. 

I have written to Helen about a week ago; this, however, 
cannot be news to you, unless you have neglected duty; if so, 
consider yourself tried by court-martial, and cashiered from my 
fraternal memory,” 

Unless you have neglected duty!” Gerald flushed at that. 
It was nearly three weeks since he had seen her. He had un- 
wisely and purposely avoided her ever since fhe young simpleton 


A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE. 16? 

Evelyn Smytharra had told him of the harmless gossip that con- 
nected her name with his. 

He was flattered to find that she took sufficient interest in 
him to mention him in lier letter to Hillier. He knew that he 
had conquered her disliUe, and that her manner to him was not 
what it was to other men; there was a little thrill of pleasure at 
his heart when he recalled her words, that he was a difficult 
man to love, but one of whom any woman would be proud. 

“I have neglected my duty,” he said to himself, “I have 
Slighted her almost when I consider the terms we are upon: I 
did not think she gave a second thought to the few remarks I 
exchanged with the premier. My own idea when I left the 
party was that I had been an egotist^ betraying more self-con* 
ceit than knowledge; it may have been so, and if so, hie inter- 
est in me is accounted for, — he recognized a kindred spirit.” 

He looked at his watch. It was late for an afternoon call, but 
he was privileged, and he was already accredited with the Farn- 
bourne eccentricity of ignoring the paltry points of etiquette, 
apart from the customs of well-bred society. Miss St. Derring- 
ton was not alone when he saw her. Three or four loungers 
were with her, and two ladies whose manners were as graceful 
as their rouge was palpable. Gerald wished heartily he had not 
been tempted to call, and would have seized the earliest oppor- 
tunity of going, but a signal— merely a look — made him stay. 

“ Have you seen the Gazette f’ the gentle Smytharra inquired, 
his intimates would call him Smythe in spite of liis plaintive 
protests that he had nothing in common with that family. Not 
even their common sense, he might have added. 

“ I have seen the morning papers,” Gerald said, “and I had a 
letter from him not many hours after.” 

Never at any time a very genial man, except with those he 
thoroughly liked, Gerald threw a hopeless chill upon these slow 
and languid gentlemen — slow and languid here, but sufficiently 
full of life and strength and gayety elsewhere; and they took 
their departure soon. The ladies finding that he had nothing to 
say, and was not even a good listener, left with half their scan- 
dal unfinished, and Gerald had the field to himself. Many would 
have thought it an enviable position. He sat dovvn with a curi- 
ous sense of restraint, as if he had sinned in some way, and 
expected a rebuke. 

••You had a letter from him to-day ?” she said. “Does he 
speak of coming home?” 

“No. He tells me he enjoys the campaign — a strange fancy 
for a man who shrank from the trouble or the cruelty of shoot- 
ing a bird or a rabbit I” 

“ From the trouble, not the cruelty,” Miss St. Derrington said, 
with stow bitterness. “ Hillier’s largest virtue was indolence. 
When he threw that aside, his real nature came out; and men 
who can be very tender to the dumb creation, can be most 
merciless to their own kind. But tell me— how is it you have 
stayed away so long ?” 


168 


A SiSTElVS SAOeMCJ^* 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

“DOES LOVE MAKE PEOPLE HAPPIER IN MARRIAGE?’^ 

Nothing could have been more difficult to answer than this 
simple question, because he could not answer it satisfactorily to 
himself. 

“ Perhaps I was afraid of you,” he said, “ or of myself, or it 
may be that I have an unfortunate infirmity of temper or dis- 
position which I do not always care to inflict upon my friends.” 

“I knowj” she said, “you lead a strange life for a man to 
whom the world should be so bright. I hear you spoken of as 
one who does not seem to derive much pleasure from his fort- 
une. How is it ?” 

“You know me. Miss St. Derrington, — my past history, my 
present position. You hear me spoken of, and I can imagine 
that people say I am a strange figure in the world we move 
in, and I am; but what would you have me do? I know you 
take a kindly interest in me, or I would not speak like this.” 

“ Since I began to know you I like you!” Helen said. “ Since 
Hillier wished that I should try to understand you, I must con- 
fess that I have studied you with some interest, and I have often 
wondered at you and felt sorry for you!” 

“ Tell me wdiy.” 

“ You waste opportunities, — throw them aside, not willfully, 
but with a quiet, indifferent contempt, as if you contained 
within yourself enough for all your needs. You make no 
friends?” 

“Can you name any amongst the men and women you and I 
know worth making into friends?” 

“Not if you take it seriously as you take all things.” 

“Pardon me, all things that are serious only.” 

“ Well, have it so, and that is where your disposition,— good 
in itself, and of the metal that would ring, — will develop into 
an infirmity. I can understand that you do not care for the 
town idlers, — the men whose aim is to kill time. You want to 
use it. May I tell you that I have an impression about you ?” 

He bowed. 

“There is something lost, or something wanting in your life. 
Am I right ?” 

“Say there is something lost and something wanting, then 
you are right.” 

“This should not be, Gerald,” she said, touching his wrist 
with her hand. “Replace the something you have lost, and find 
that which is wanting.” 

“ Ay, that is wisely said,” he observed. “ But ask yourself, 
have you lost nothing? Have you not lost that which you would 
find it difficult to replace ? Forgive me, I should not have said 
that, but judge me by yourself.” 

“But I am only a woman, even if our loss has been the 
same.” 

“And I, you would say, should bear mine like a man. Do you 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


169 


remember Macduff’s answer to his friend when he heard that his 
wife and children had been slain by Macbeth’s orders? and he 
was told to bear it like a man ?” 

“ I have seen the play, but do not remember.” 

“I do; he said, ‘ But I must also feel it like a man 1’ Well, 
that, in a different degree, is my [case. My dreams were my 
children. I lost them when I lost her whom I loved. The word 
is out of date, I know, but not with us.” 

“ Poor boy! But this must have taken place since ” 

“Since I exchanged obscurity and five hundred a year for a 
title and more than twice as many thousands. I will trust you 
with my secret, Helen. I made her my wife on the very day I 
came to Ashford Lynn, and I lost her on the day of my return, 
after my uncle’s funeral.” 

“ That was sad indeed; but not so bad as some things are; for 
death is merciful, Gerald. The hand that takes away brings 
resignation. The trial is when the one we have lost — lives.” 

He had never thought there was so much sympathy in her 
nature; that her proud eyes could grow so beautiful and soft. 
Looking at them as he met their gaze, brouglit tears into his 
own. 

“ That is the loss,” she said, “ and, like mine, must be borne. 
Now, there is the something wanting — what is it?” 

“In one word — companionship.” 

“ Yes, that would be it, and you cannot find it?” 

“I found it with Hillier, and to some extent, with you.” 

“ Are you one of those, then, who believe that a woman can 
be a true friend to a man?” 

“ Yes, in spite of Bulwer, who adds to it, ‘ When she is in 
love with someone else ’ ” 

“ I read Bulwer; but where is that?” 

“ In ‘ Pelham ’ — a book that, for the sake of his generous and 
noble genius, should have been carefully suppressed after its 
first edition. It is full of the same small cynicisms— those of a 
boy who began the world too soon. But I believe in a woman’s 
true friendship, when she is a true woman.” 

“ If men were as true, Gerald, there would be more of it; but 
a woman dare not trust herself. And you, who speak of cyni- 
cism as if you despised it, are as cynical as any man I know; 
certainly you have no small cynicisms, and you rarely say un- 
kind things; but your whole fife is a cynicism.” 

“ Do you wonder at it?” 

“ No, I am only sorry for it. I think you might do so much: 
you have strength of will and talents and I am sure you have 
ambition; yet you do nothing. You were a happier man when 
I first saw you than you are now.” 

“ I was then in my own sphere,” he said; “ here I am in a 
false one. I did not know my own name or parentage till my 
uncle revealed them on his dying bed. I went to school where 
any boy wdiose fees were regularly paid would be admitted, no 
matter where he came from. I was never taught that I had ex- 
pectations beyond those of any ordinary middle-class lad of my 
own age. I formed no associations, made no friends; my man- 


170 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE, 


ners were acquired from those around me. My valet is a better- 
educated man than I am.” 

“ As a linguist; and as a linguist my maid is far in advance 
of me. It is simply an adjunct to the other qualities that make 
her an excellent maid, and would make her an equally excel- 
lent governess in the nursery. You are sorry that you were 
not sent to one of the universities ?” 

“ I am now.” 

“ Surely you need not regret that you have escaped the 
studied and affected tone, the imitation of each other, which 
gives them such a dreadful sameness. As you are, you are 
yourself, and you would be better if you were more satisfied 
with yourself. You want companionship; make .yourself com- 
panionable. Do not keep away from society" till you have a 
distaste for it. Let me see more of you. Let us be friends.” 

“ With all my heart. I was reluctant to come, and now I am 
very glad I came. You see how it is, Helen, I have no relatives. 
If my mother had lived I should have had a home. There is 
the grand old house at Ashford Lynn — empty.” 

“Take some one to it. You would not find her difficult to 
obtain.” 

“ For my rank and money ?” 

“ No; for yourself.” 

“ Yet it would be difficult to love me,” he said, with a smile. 

“ I see Hillier has betrayed me. It would be difficult, Glerald, 
but at most a quesiion of time. What more did Hillier say ?” 

“ You shall have his own words. ‘ I should be a difficult man 
to love, but one of whom any woman would be proud; and I 
am very old for my age.’” 

“T could repeat it now and mean it, every word.” 

“ Being so very old for my age, Helen, and you so very young 
for yours, will you take my extra age as a point in my favor if 
I ask you to be proud of me? In so many words, be my 

“You ask this, Gerald, when you know we have no love to 
give each other ?” 

“ I ask it for many reasons, knowing that well. Does love 
make people happier in marriage, do you think?” 

“ Heaven knoWs; but sweet pain comes with it.” 

“ Will you give me your answer now?” 

She placed her hand in his and said — 

“ Yes; that is my answer.” 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

OVER THE WATER. 

There had been no word of love on either side, but both were 
satisfied with the compact made. It seemed to be in the fitness 
of things that these two should come together; he knew what 
her disappointment had been, and he had told her his own story. 
Leaving love out of the question, there would be no deceit; 
Gerald kpevy that even if she had loved him ever so dearly, she 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 171 

would' not have told a falsehood or hidden the truth for the 
sake of winning him. 

It was in his power to gratify her ambition now better than 
Hillier could have done had be been the late Lord Farnbourne’s 
heir; then she would simply have reigned at Ashford Lynn as 
Mrs. St. Derrington, now she would reign as Lady Farnbourne. 
Leaving love out of the question, he had every reason to be con- 
tent; yet when he thought of their coming marriage, there rose 
in his heart a yearning for Jeannette. Helen St, Derrington, in 
all her pride and beauty, could never be to him what his pretty 
little loving fellow-lodger in Pimlico had been. 

But the die was cast, and he had only to forget her so far as 
not to let his thoughts of her interfere with his duty. He had 
an interview with her nearest male relative, an uncle who 
always listened to and accepted suggestions, and then acted 
upon them with the dignity of an inventor. The monetary ar- 
rangements were left to Mr. Channing, and the day for the 
wedding was fixed by Helen herself with as little emotion as she 
would have promised to attend a garden-party. There was no 
pretense of love-making between them; he claimed no privileges 
that belonged to him; he had kissed her, but never with the 
passion of a lover — rather in a cousinly way when that danger- 
ous relationship is kept within proper limits; for the rest, the 
world saw no difference in their behavior to each other — their 
engagement was known, and the marriage was to take place 
toward the end of August; they were now in February. 

At her own request the time had been deferred till then. “ I 
should like Hillier to be present,” she said; “ I do not want peo- 
ple to say what they might if he were not there,” 

“ 1, too,” he said, “should like Hillier to be present. We 
might both be misjudged otherwise.” 

Very easily indeed, he thought; for it would not be unnatural 
that people should say she had chosen a rich man with an old 
title in preference to one who had merely won his rank as 
colonel in a line regiment by hard fighting, and that, too, in 
the days when there are colonels in plenty, a few generals, and 
a field marshal or two who have never heard the sound of gun- 
powder except at a review. Surely the handsome guardsman 
had degenerated very much! 

Gerald wrote to him, and the reply came back with the rapid- 
ity of a military dispatch. It was almost as brief as military 
dispatches used to be. 

“ You have done the very thing T should have wished,” Colonel 
St. Derrington wrote, “and if I were knocked over to-morrow, I 
should he more easy in my mind for knowing it, and take my 
word that you wiU not find Helen difficult when you are more 
together. There is a little of the romantic in both of you that 
will die away when you settle down. As for me, I shall be there 
if I am alive and there is enough of me left worth bringing. I 
am getting along splendidly. I have had a spear through my 
left arm, and a bullet in my thigh, and a graze in one of my 
ribs, which tickled me without giving me the least inclination 


m 


A SISTER^S SAGRIFIOE. 


to laugh. You have uo idea what beggars these black fellows 
are to fight, and how sadly deficient they are in the usages of 
polite warfare; but between ourselves, they are nothing in the 
way of devilry to our own men when they are fairly let loose. 
For a genuine demon, — reckless, quick, cool, and cruelly merci- 
less, with no more fear of bullets than a child has of bonbons^ 
—give me a trooper who has graduated in the London streets 
and taken his chief degree in Millbank or Pentonville. When 
you get them to like you, and it is very eas}", they are the best 
soldiers and most faithful followers under tlie sun. Nearly a 
dozen of them, — the worst characters and the finest troopers in 
the regiment, — stood by me when 1 was dowm with that spear 
and a bullet. They took me through a howling crowd with the 
odds of ten to one. Five of them were left behind, and when 
the roll was called I felt as if I had lost a friend in each man. 

“ We shall finish the campaign soon, and I shall be glad, for 
we are wasting men to no purpose. What we are doing now 
will have to be done over and over again for the next fifty years. 
I should be glad to see it done at once and forever. 

“Do not tell Helen of my little injuries. Women have an 
exaggerated idea of' wounds and injuries. I shall come back 
looking better than ever — bigger, and rather sunburned, with 
my arm in a sling, perhaps, and certainly with a limp that will 
spoil my waltzing. You may, however, see me for yourself 
sooner than I expect just now.” 

Taken on the face of it, Hi! Her had said all he had to say and 
all he felt; but underlying his sang froid, the long pent-up, un- 
spoken love for Helen revealed itself. Perhaps for a man of 
deep feeling there is nothing better than the culture which 
enables him to conceal it. 

Nearlv three months of the six Iiad gone when Gerald paid a 
visit to his old friends the Hormsbys. He had never lost his 
liking for them and the well remembered rooms, but he did not 
go frequently. They were too closely associated with Jeannette 
for him to see them without pain; but he heard from Dr. Alison 
that they had been unfortunate of late. One gentleman w’ho 
came with good credentials and played in a London theater, at 
a handsome salary, left there at the end of three months called 
away by a sudden and important engagement in the counti}', 
whence he would forward a check. The check never came, as 
a matter of course; and then they had minor losses of a nature 
to which lodging-house keepers in that doubtful region or any 
other region, are always liable. And worst of all, honest, hard- 
working, and independent Christopher injured his head badly, 
while at his avocation. The wound was not dangerous in itself, 
but the moisture he took with his shopmates in the shape of 
beer brought on erysipelas; and when Gerald saw him he was 
bandaged up and suffering, with a tumbler of cold tea and a pipe, 
trying to make believe, like Mr. Richard Swiveller’s friend the 
Marchioness, that tea taken from a tumbler tasted as it looked, 
like ale. 

“ And my Chris have been that bad,” the little woman said, 


A SiSTER^S SACRIFICE. 


173 


“and he won’t take anything from anybody now that he can- 
not pay his share, and he won't let me pay for anything neither, 
though as I tell him, it would not matter, as we have a little 
put by still. Though it is running a bit short.” 

“You should have sent to me,” said Gerald, “I take it as an 
unkindness that you did not.” 

“ Lord bless you. Master Gerald. T never can think of you as 
a lord, for you don’t look a bit different, it was more than I 
dare do; he do let me have my way in most things, but I should 
soon have my head under my arm if I didn’t mind him in that, 
and,” she added slyly, “ we have had a friend.” 

“ Dr. Alison ?” 

“ He has been very kind, but there was another.” 

“ Any one I know ?” 

“Oh, yes; you know her well enough.” 

“Her; or you mean ” 

“ Miss Daniels, yes, sir, you are quite right; she have written 
to me ever since you went away.” 

“ Then you know her address?” 

“Oh, yes, sir, at Mr. Channing’s, Lincoln’s Inn.” 

“ Exactly,” he said with a sigh of disappointment, for he had 
hoped she might inadvertently have trusted her more humble 
friends, “and she is well and happy, happy I am glad to say. 
AVhat is the name of the gentleman who went away in your 
debt?” 

“ His real name is Flanders, but he sings as Brookson; he was 
here with his mother, quite a lady, I should not have trusted 
him but for her.” 

“ No doubt of it; a mother, if only a borrowed one, is a con- 
venient cloak for that kind of swindle— the worst kind, for he 
can pay, and will not. What is the amount he owes you ?” 

“He had the best rooms, and I boarded him; our credit is 
good, and I could get everything, and I thought it would be nice 
to have the money in a lump at the three months. The bill is a 
hundred and seven pounds.” 

“ T was almost inclined to say you deserve to lose it for trust- 
ing him. You ought to have learned by this time that a pleas- 
ant voice and manner, and well-made clothes, are a swindler’s 
stock-in-trade. A poor man who pays for the coat he wears 
might go hungry for a dinner. However, I know where to find 
this Mr. Brookson, and we will get the money from him. My 
solicitor will send you a check within a fortnight.” 

The little woman looked at him with eyes that glistened 
gratefully. 

“ I know what you mean to do, sir. You will pay this money 
yourself.” 

“ Never mind what I mean to do,” he interrupted. “Your 
husband might accept it as a gift, but only because he would not 
like to offend me by a refusal. He has the proper independent 
spirit of a working man, and I would be the last one to put the 
weight of an obligation upon it; and I tell you candidly I shall 
place this Mr, Brookson in my solicitor’s hands, and he will get 


174 


A SISTER'S SACRIFICE. 


the money. I have no mercy for these unprincipled, plausible 
gentry. You, however, will have the check within a fortnight.” 

The young doctor came in a little late; his practice had im- 
proved' so that he found an assistant necessary, and even then 
he had little leisure time. He was very cordial in his greeting. 

“ You are come well,” he said, “ which is, I suppose, the old- 
fashioned and original wording of our ‘ welcome.’ I intended 
to call upon you this evening.” 

“ So that we have met, it does not matter; but had you any 
purpose in particular ?” 

“ Yes; I wanted, and want your company.” 

“ Consider me yours.” 

“ Thanks, and you must not retract. I want you to spend an 
hour at one of your favorite places of resort — a rausic-hall. For 
one thing, our friend Moss will be there, for the next, you will 
see an extraordinary exhibition in the gymnastic line, by a gen- 
tleman now known to fame as ‘ Leonidas, the Lion Athlete.’ ” 
You mean the fellow who came here; and if it were to see 
him break his neck, I would go with pleasure — as it is, I have 
given my word.” 

If you can forget that you ever met the man, you will say 
with me, that in his art he is without an equal. The man pos- 
sesses every qualification for it — strength, grace, skill, daring, 
and muscular beauty of the highest order. I am speaking of 
him as a gymnast merely.” 

“ I shall look at him as a gymnast merely. What time does he 
appear ?” 

“ Nine, or a quarter past; but there is a capital lounge, where 
good cigars and wine can be had for money. There are some 
pictures, too. I have seen worse in the Academy. I promise 
you our time will not be wasted.” 

“ Is it far V” 

“Two miles from here. Half-an -hour’s stroll, for he who 
would ride on that Englisli rarity — a pleasant evening in May — 
should be written down a Goth.” 

The stroll took them rather more than half an hour; but they 
took a slow pace. They passed the grand old abbey where the 
author of “ Childe Harold ”is at rest, and went over^Vestminster 
Bridge. Five minutes’ w^alk took them into another atmosphere, 
another world, peopled with a different order of beings. They 
were in Lambeth, with its hunger, dirt, and poverty, its pros- 
perous tradesmen and starving customers; perhaps the most pros- 
perous tradesmen are the publicans and the pawnbrokers. The 
poor always pay ready money when they drink, a striking in- 
stance of their natural honesty. 

Poor as they were, the poorest seemed able to spend a shilling 
or two on their amusement, for Gerald and his friend found the 
body of the hall nearly filled with them. Lord Farnbourne 
noticed that the conduct of the audience left nothing to be de- 
sired. A little less smoke might have been desirable, but the 
building was well ventilated. The saloon or lounge came upon 
him like a surprise. It was carpeted throughout, fitted with 
spring-seated, velvet-covered lounges, and marble tables; the 


A SISTERS 3 SACRIFICE. 


175 


pictures were well chosen, all the subjects bein^ historical or 
flomestic. Marcus Curtius leaping into the gulf was faced b}" a 
large and powerful painting of the Inundation. There were one 
or two Wilkies, and that pathetic picture-poem of the Blind 
Beggar. So far Gerald could not but confess that he had been 
at fault. Exeter Hall itself could not have shown more pro- 
priety. 

Near the end, close by the termination of the long bar, was 
Mr. Lascelles Moss and a gentleman so much like the Third 
Napoleon that he would have been in danger had the disciples 
of Orsini chosen his establishment as a place of resort. Gerald 
was introduced to him, and found him a man of keen worldly 
judgment, with a weakness for champagne and fine cigars. 
Like Mr. Moss, he indulged powerfully in rings and studs of the 
largest size and purest water. Their portable property was in 
itself a guaranty against bankruptcy. 

“ I have to ask your pardon for the share I took in a certain 
business,” Moss said, taking Gerald aside; “ but what could I do, 
my lord, when a lady put me on my honor and appealed to my 
feelings ?” 

“ Nothing, except what you did. You could not have acted 
otherwise. Pray say no more about it. But how did you hear?” 

“Oh, that Mr. Courtney told everybody. He is somewhere in 
the house, slinking about like a stray dog, trying to make 
friends. We have all given him the cold shoulder. Of course 
you know he has left Lincoln’s Inn ?” 

“ I have made no inquiries and heard nothing.” 

“ Well, he has. His drunkenness was chronic, and he was 
turned adrift, he says, through you. He does a little legal busi- 
ness in a pettifogging way — county court work and debt collect- 
ing, but he is going to the dogs. If I were a dog,” added Mr. 
Moss, emphatically, “ and he came to me. I d bite him.” 

“ How is it that I find the other one here ?” 

“ Well, you see,” the agent said, apologetically, “ I could not 
find it in iny heart to stand in the way of his bread. He ran 
through his money, and came to me for a sovereign to get him 
down to a circus in the country. He told me he had a chance 
here if I would put in a word, and what could I do ? You can- 
not bear malice on a man when he is down.” 

“ I admire you none the less that I do not like the man,” said 
Gerald, as a pretty black-eyed young lady, of whom he had a 
dim remembrance, came toward him. “ He has done his worst, 
and may reform. Who. is this?” 

“ The little girl who chaffed you at my place,” laughed the 
agent. “Ella St. Grey, the witch! Do you remember ? She is 
doing a turn here?” 

By this time the young lady herself had taken possession of 
Gerald’s hand in quite a confidential way. She evidently had a 
good memory for faces. 

“ I say, what an awful swell you are when you are out!” she 
said, with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes; “ you never 
notice me.” 

“ If you say that I have never seeu you it would be more 


176 


A SISTEirS SACRIFICE. 


nearly correct,^’ he said, “unless you are the little lady who 
was kind enough to predict such extraordinary things of me one 
morning at Mr. Moss’ office ?” 

“ That’s me! and I kuew I was right. It may never come 
true, but still it is in you, and how are you?” 

“ As you see. Do you still retain your old liking for this ?” 

“ I never lost it. Give me some. * Never mind another glass. 
Yours will do.” 

He obeyed her with a gravity that had much kindness in it. 
The feverishly bright eyes and careworn face told their o\yn 
tale, in spite of her unreal gayety. She looked at him while 
drinking, and faltered under the confusion of his gaze. 

“ You will vex his lordship if you tease him so,” the manager 
observed, “ and it is almost time you were on, so you had better 
steady yourself, my girl, and dress.” 

“ His lordship!” she said, starting back with pretended horror. 
“ Oh, lor! and you are a lord. I thought you looked like some- 
body when I saw you in the park.” 

Then a sudden change came over her, and she dashed his glass 
to the ground with an air of passionate resentment. 

“ I remember now,” she said; “ Mr. Barr}- — Lord Farnbourne, 
that is the name. Then you are the man who nearly killed my 
— Mr. de Mortimar — when he went to see that dainty bit of soft- 
tongued, pretended modesty, Jenny Delaney. Oh, my lord, I 
shall know you again; and I should like to see her.” 

She flung herself through the door that led to the dressing- 
rooms, passing him with a gesture like a blow. The manager 
took his cigar from his lips, and sent a careless whiff of smoke 
after her. 

“ She leaves my show to-night,” he said quietly; “her time is up, 
but I would have given lier another fortnight. I do not under- 
stand it, my lord, but 1 am sorry it has happened; she always 
was a little demon, and you never know how to take it.” 

“ This may account for some of it,” Gerald said, pointing to 
the broken glass. “ Who is she?” 

“ Perhaps I can explain,” said Mr. Moss. “ She is Ella St. 
Grey, a very clever little girl. She ran away from De Morti- 
mar about nine years ago, and though they are here together 
now they meet and speak as strangers; he is cruelly polite to 
her, and she is as fond of him as ever.” 

Doctor Alison pressed Gerald’s arm. 

“ The girl I told you of,” he said; “it was she who nursed 
him when I attended him for his accident.” 

“Do not,” he said to the manager, “let her suffer for her 
trifling indiscretion; I know the reason and can easily forgive 
her.” 


CHAPTER XL. 

THE LION ATHLETE. 

Up to the present time they had paid no attention to the per- 
formance, though they could see what was going on reflected in 
the glass behind the bar. The first hour or so was filled up 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 


177 


with some comic songs, as free from comicality as they were 
from vice; then two really droll fellows, whose shoes would 
have furnished a comfortable home for the little old woman of 
tradition; then an operatic selection, with a tenor who might 
have taken his place without disadvantage by the side of some 
gentlemen with italicized names, and then a pause, during 
which the chairman, speaking like a man ^v’ho was certain of 
being well received, ga\ e the table an extra rap and announced 
Miss Ella St. Grey. 

That she was a favorite there could be no doubt; she sang 
and danced well, kept her litlie figure in ceaseless motion, and 
her face was one bright smile. Her talent for mimicking was 
inimitable, and though he could not deny she deserved the ap- 
plause that brought her on time after time, Gerald could only 
think of one thing. 

“ In her, as she is now, I see what Jeannette was,” he said to 
himself; ‘‘in such a place as this Jeannette did what this girl is 
doing now, and she might have been Lady Farnbourne.” 

When the curtain went down again it was to prepare for the 
grand athletic and aeriel performance of Monsieur Leonidas, the 
lion athlete, concluding with his world-renowned and unparal- 
leled dive from the roof to the stage, a distance of nearly a 
hundred feet, an act, as the chairman was good enough to tell 
his audience, never before attempted by any other living artiste. 

On the face of this there was not much exaggeration; the 
long words were the property of the chairman, and the manager 
thought there ought to have been more of them; still, as he 
was in ol her respects a very good chairman, the deficiency of a 
dozen words or so did not matter. 

Leonidas, otherwise Hector the fiying Arabian, otherwise 
Hector de Mortimar, made his appearance and set to work at 
once. The first noticeable points were the extreme smallness 
and delicacy of his hands and feet, and he was splendidly dressed 
in pale blue silk velvet trimmed with silver braid as fine as 
lace. His powerful shapely limbs were covered in a soft white 
elastic that fitted him as closely as the painfully tight panta- 
loons worn by our forefathers in the days when George the 
First was King, and England w^as merry and moral; his boots 
were satin and in color matched his dress, and his arms were 
bare from tlie shoulder. No finer specimen of mankind ever 
stood before the footlights. 

He swung himself easily and gracefully by a single leap up to 
a trapeze fixed high above the stage, and went through his per- 
formance with a daring even the manager had never seen him 
equal. He seemed to take a delight in playing with peril. Some- 
times the audience held their breath in suspense, — Gerald 
amongst them. He grew interested, for he had never seen any- 
thing more perfect in its way. 

“Moss, old boy,” said the manager, as the house rang when 
Leonidas repeated feat after feat con amove, “ he is better than 
ever. Hanged if I don’t give him a dowser to-night,” — he meant 
douceur , — “ and he shall have another month at half sal. ex.” 
But the lion athlete was not to have another month, and ben- 


178 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 


efit by the half salary extra. lie stood now at a height that left 
scarcely twenty inches between his head and the roof; it was 
from this that he dived into the net just above the stage. 

For a moment he stood here, poised lightly on the slender bar. 
smiling at the sea of upturned faces, when, in the midst of the 
many, directly in a line with his own, he saw Gerald’s. It could 
be seen that he paused and held the side cords tightly,— drew 
himself together, as if to recover his self-possession. Then, as 
if ashamed of his own weakness, he clasped his hands for the 
dive and went down. 

But he turned no triple somersault, nor one. That single 
moment in which he encountered Gerald’s calm, pale face and 
steady gaze disconcerted him, and he went straight and head- 
long— a swift, dead weight that took him beyond the strip of 
carpet and clean through the meshes of the net to the stage. 
Every heart echoed to the deadly thud with which he struck the 
boards, and lay there, after a sob and a quiver of the limbs, 
quite motionless. 

“ Follow me, for Heaven’s sake!” Moss said to Alison. “ You 
are a doctor, and may be of use, but it is all over with him I 
think.” 

The manager had already gone. Ho was a practical man, and 
there was the audience to quiet. He went up the short, narrow 
staircase that separated the saloon from the stage, and gave his 
orders briefly. 

“Curtain down,” he said, and take the poor fellow to my 
room.” 

He followed slowly, quieting the excited audience with a 
gesture worthy of the monarch he was supposed to resemble; 
and even here the irrepressible showman peeped out, for he 
turned as Alison and Gerald passed the wing, followed by Moss 
in full view of the audience. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “ the gentlemen who have 
just passed me — a distinguished nobleman and his physician — 
will see that every atttmtion is paid, and you shall know the 
result of the examination. I ask meantime that you will keep 
your seats and maintain strict order.” 

The sobs of the women ceased, and men spoke in whispers. 
The manager was a quiet man. He never lost his head in an 
emergency. 

Two minutes later he went before the curtain with a look of 
serene gratification. 

“ You will be glad to hear, ladies and gentlemen, that our dear 
friend. Monsieur Leonidas, is not, as we feared, fatally injured. 
He will not be able to appear before you in person to thank you 
for your kindness and sympathy; but he begs me to express his 
gratified sense of what he feels, and he trusts that you will not 
let his unfortunate accident mar your enjoyment of the rest of 
the evening!” 

It was cleverly and kindly done. But for his ready tact, hun- 
dreds who had spent the only shilling or two they had to spare 
on this their Saturday night outing would have gone home, 
pained and sickened at the sudden and awful accident that iooj? 


A SISTERS SACRIFICE. 


179 


place before tlieir eyes. He kept back the next comic singer, 
and sent on the lady contralto, who sang tnern, “When I am 
far away from Home,” and “ Shells of the Ocean,” as better 
suited to their feelings. To follow her he sent the choir to sing 
the Sicilian vespers in a minor key. He haa to keep the audience 
amused, and take care the sufferer should not be disturbed at tlie 
same time. 

In the manager’s room the lion athlete lay full length on a 
couch, his head pillowed on a woman’s arm, a woman’s face 
resting on his breast above his heart. This was Ella St. Grey. 
She would not be moved. She clung to him as if she would 
have held him back from death. 

“You must leave him to me,” Alison urged, gently; “ he 
must be stripped and examined, he may die while you are 
there.” 

“ What do I matter here ?” she asked turning her pathetic face 
toward them; “ he is my husband, no one has the right to him 
that I have.” 

“ Your husband, young lady ?” said Alison. “ Are you speak- 
ing the truth ?” 

“ Do you think I would say so if I wasn’t, now?” she said; 
“you know! am, sir. It was you who attended him before — 
the last time he had a fall. I have been his wife these ten 
years. I left him because I was jealous, and I thought I would 
pay him out in his own coin, and now— oh. Heaven! — be might 
beat me, or kick me, or do anything if he would only speak.’’ 

“Leave him to me,” Alison said: “you know what I did for 
him before,” 

She kissed his hands passionately. 

“ Oh, do — do!” she cried. “ If you can only make him speak 
just a word. He did love me once, and I always — always loved 
him.” 

Lascelles Moss took her in his arms as a father might have 
done, pressed her to his big, good-natured heart, and used his 
handkerchief to his own eyes as well as hers. Gerald looked on 
in sympathy and silence, helping Dr. Alison as required. 
Nearly an hour passed before the doctor spoke the words the 
poor girl longed to hear. 

Then he took her hand. 

“Mrs. de Mortimar,” he said, “your husband may live. I 
cannot say how long, perhaps for years; but he will be a helpless 
man to the end of his days.” 


CHAPTER XLI. 

A NIGHT’S REFLECTION. 

It was true! Dr. Alison was too well skilled in the surgical 
portion of his art to be mistaken. When the handsome gym- 
nast crashed through the net, he saved his head at the expense 
of his hip and shoulder; the hip was dislocated and fractured, 
the right arm broken in two places. He might live, but only as 
a crippled, helpless man. He told her this at the time when her 
mind was prepared for the worst. 


180 


A SISTEE^S SACRIFICE. 


“ But he will live,” she said, looking at the quiet face with a 
woman’s undying love — “ he will live?” 

“Yes; the man must be made of steel,” he said, more to him- 
self than her, “ And now, if you will be good enough to send 
to the hospital for a stretcher,” he added, turning to the mam 
ager, “ He must go at once,” 

The girl threw her arm across the gymnast’s chest, and turned 
as if at bay. 

“No, no, no,” she said, with a quick shudder; “not to the 
hospital. They W’ould not let me stay w ith him. Let me take 
him home.” 

“ Impossible, Mrs. de Mortimar. He requires appliances,— 
cradles, slings, pulleys, and other things that only can be found 
at the hospital; no private surgeon would supply them — they 
could not be fixed in any private house; and he will require 
constant, incessant nursing.” 

“I will nurse him,” she pleaded. “Let me take him home. 
You can fix up all the things you want in ray room, and he shall 
have a proper nurse to take my place when I am tired. And I 
can pay you, doctor; if it were for six months, I could stand 
to it.” 

“ So would I,” said Mr. Moss, patting her head with one hand 
and his pocket w’ith the other. “If it can be done at home, 
that little difficulty is over.” 

“ I tell you simply,” said Alison, “ that if you paid a thousand 
pounds a week you could not deal with a case like this so w^ell 
as at the hospital.” 

“ Not to the hospital,” the injured man murmured, faintly. 
“ Dear.” 

When he said “ Dear,” he lifted his unhurt arm and tried to 
place his hand on the face of his long-deserted wife. 

“ Let her take him home,” said Gerald; “ I w ill see to the 
rest. For my own part, Alison, I would rather trust him to 
you; and, should he live, he may try to repay her.” 

Miss St. Grey did not thank him even by a glance — there was 
evidently something still rankling in her mind against him. 

Two hours later the gymnast w^as in bed, his injuries dressed 
and his pain lulled by a soporific. Alison and Gerald said good- 
night to the kind-hearted agent, and walked home together 
under the quiet sky. It was nearly an hour past midnight 
now, and the streets were still. The law that closes the public- 
an’s door at midnight on Saturday has a good effect on the 
Surrey side of the water— it might be applied with equal benefit 
to some clubs at the West-end; only it would shut the custom- 
ers in instead of out. 

“ What a history there was in her words,” the doctor re- 
marked, “and what a thorough brute the fellow must have 
been; and then her own confession, that when she found he 
was untrue to her, she paid him back in his own coin. Terrible, 
is it not ?” 

“ Terrible indeed, but I am thinking of myself; if this is true, 
Jeannette is still my wife.” 

“ Are you sorry for that r” 


A 8IST:^R^S 8ACH1F1CR. 


181 


1 had set the thought of her aside, Alison, grown reconciled 
to the new future, and I sicken when I think of her as we saw 
this poor girl to-night, pandering with face, and voice, and fig- 
ure to the morbid appetite of that wretched multitude; and 
then, still like this poor girl, she had been the companion, the 
wife of the ill-bred, handsome animal we left.” 

“Your fancy is more morbid than their appetite; you had 
better take a night for reflection; before you think or act, con- 
sult Mr. Channing.” 

“Can he help me through the case with Miss St. Derring- 
ton ?” 

“ No, that is your own business, purely, and if you care for 
my advice, I would suggest the truth as simply told as possible.” 

“ Yes, that must be done, bitter as the humiliation will be.” 

“ Always thinking of yourself,” said Alison, gravely. “ Your 
own humiliation, not her disappointment, and you do not speak 
of love.” 

“Thank Heaven, we have not indulged in that folly; she will 
only regret that her chance of being Lady Fainbourne is gone.” 

“ Do not be sure of that.” 

“ Would you say that she cares for me ?” 

“ Not for an instant,” was the calm reply, “ the contract was 
entered into in a way that gave it no stability, and she may not 
regret the restoration of her freedom.” 

“ Your consolation does not take the shape of compliment, 
Mr. Alison.” 

“Dr. Alison, if you please. Lord Farnbouroe, since we are to 
be ceremonious. I have looked upon myself as your friend, 
tried to think you had some regard for me, and on my word 
if I were in your place, I should consider myself most fort- 
unate.” 

“In what?” 

“ In being at liberty to take back to my heart as true a woman 
as ever was given to man. That is, if you can get her, but the 
Miss Daniel I knew is not one to be taken up and put aside as 
circumstances and your inclinations may dictate.”. 

They had reached the abbey by this time, and both paused. 

Gerald laughed, angrily. 

“Good-night,” he said. 

“ Do we part here?” and the doctor turned his frank, kindly 
face upon the troubled countenance of his friend. “Well, as 
you please— better, perhaps. When you are yourself, come to 
me or send to me, you aie always welcome. I am sure you will 
do right in the end.” 

Gerald would have said that the doctor was a good fidlow, 
but he could not speak just then; he wrung the other’s hand 
and turned awav. Several cabmen hailed him, and he resented 
their attentions ‘with such fierce and threatening silence, that 
they thought they were as well without his money on the whole. 
He walked home. 

“The sort of gent as would give you what he liked, and floor 
you on the doorstep if you said a word,” one said to another. 
“ A similar party chucked me agin the wheel one night, and 


182 


A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE. 


wanted to give me in charge next day when I went and told 
him two of my ribs was broke. I always lets ’em alone when 
they looks as he do ’ 

(herald walked home with his thoughts as dark and troubled 
as his face. He sat up till daybreak, taking the night’s reflec- 
tion Alison had suggested; it brought him very little comfort. 
He tried to sleep for the sake of his health, but was glad when 
the waiter came to tell him that the bath was ready. He found 
a little appetite for breakfast — a fine constitution and temperate 
habits gave him that, in spite of a mind ill at ease. He had to 
wait with what patience he could till Monday came, then he 
ordered his horse and went for a ride— went through Knights- 
bridge, Kensington, and the district beyond, at a pace that made 
his groom wonder what was the matter with him, turned 
suddenly and rode back, going straight on to Lincoln’s Inn, 
where he gave the reins to his groom, and told him to go home. 

“ Now to surprise my friend and guardian,” he said to him- 
self. “ Will it please him to find that Jeannette is Lady Farn- 
bourne after all F 

He did not surprise his friend and guardian, or if he did, the 
surprise was not shown on the surface. Mr. Channing had 
several newspapers before him; he must have been a cosmop- 
olite in politics, for he had the Daily News and Standard in 
amiable companionslnp with that neutral-tinted Times, and he 
had the Telegraph in his hand, a fact which showed that, like 
the paper itself, he had no politics in particular; but it gave a 
thrilling account of the accident to Leonidas on the previous 
Saturday, and supplemented it with a leading article, in which 
all such exhibitions, whether given by a Gonza or a street 
tumbler, were condemned without benefit of clergy. 

“ I expected you,” he said, quietly. “You have come to tell 
me that this man is dying and that his death will make a change 
iu your arrangements, is it not so ?” 

“It is not for me to say. I have no voice in the matter. 
Does Jeannette know ?” 

“Yes; I saw’ her yesterday.” 

“ How does it affect her ?” 

“ With a gentle sorrow that a life so young and strong and 
gifted should have come to such an untimely end. Nothing 
more. Whether he lives or dies there will be no change in her 
position. In her own wmrds she will not let your generous 
nature tempt you into a renewal of the first mistake— and she is 
right.” 

“Lady Farnbourne is premature in her generosity,” he said, 
dryly, “ as you are in saying she is right. Jeannette never was 
his wife, he committed bigamy when he married her, he had a 
wife living at the time — that wife is with him now.” 

Mr. Channing took a sudden breath as if Gerald had struck 
him. 

“ Who told you this ?” 

“I heard it myself. I was there with Dr. Alison. The girl 
is a singer and dancer, as Lady Farnbourne was,” he said be- 
tween his teeth. “ Yes, Mr. Channing, there it is; take the 


A SISTER’S SACRIFICE. 


183 


truth as we may —there it is. Jenny Delaney, the pet of the 
music halls, the cupid of a low monologue burlesque and ballet, 
is Lady Farn bourne, with right to take her place at Ashford 
Lynn whenever it may please her.” 

“She is not,” said Mr. Channing, sternly, “and it should not 
be even if it were her wish. You married her on the morning 
of your twenty-first birthday. You were married before mid- 
day. and you were not of age. There must be no word of this 
to Miss St. Derrington, Gerald.” 

“ You would have me marry her and keep this unknown?” 

“ Undoubtedly.” 

“ You advise this?” 

“ I insist upon it by every claim I have upon you, by my care 
for you, my love for you. I see you now as I meant to see you 
from the first, Lord Farnbourne, the master of Ashford Lynn. 
I have kept my promise to your mother, done justice to her 
name, and restored you to your rightful place. I have given you 
a lady who has no equal in the land for beauty, and no superior 
in rank and birth. Surely you will not in sheer recklessness 
strike down the fabric it has taken me so many years to build?” 

“And you would have me marry Miss St. Derrington, keeping 
this from her, taking advantage by a legal trick of Jeannette’s 
fond weakness for me? You would have me do this?” 

“ There is no other course, Gerald. You will do it, will vou 
not?” 

“ No,” said Gerald, with a startling oath; “ by all that is above 
me, I am sick of so much secrecy. A curse upon it! From first 
to last my whole life has been shadowed by it, my name and 
birth a secret, my marriage a secret, and now you would have 
me burdened vvith a third. I shall go to Miss St. Derrington at 
once and tell her the whole truth, and then, should she care to 
marry me, it will be at her own risk,” 

“ You will not be so mad.” 

“ If I never see your faOe or touch your hand again, I will.” 

“And lose her and me for the ill-taught daughter of a bank- 
rupt tradesman?” 

“What does it matter?” said Gerald, fiercely. “Miss St. 
Derrington does not marry me, she marries the title. Lady 
Farnbourne, and the right to reign at Ashford Lynn. She may 
take me even now for the sake of these.” 

“And it has come to this at last,” thought Mr. Channing. 
“ He has broken the reins with which I guided him so carefully, 
and all my work is gone — for nothing.” 


CHAPTER XLII. 
hillier’s return. 

It was the first time Gerald had left his guardian with any 
sense of anger, but such a sense was strongly upon him now. 

“ And from him of all men,” Gerald said to himself; “ the one 
I respected above all others, believing always in the honor and 
integrity of his every thought. Why, if he had the power, he 


184 


A SISTEfi^S SACRIFICE. 


would use that mean and paltry bit of lep:al trickery, .and set 
aside my marriage with Jeannette. Whether 1 wished it or not. 
I cannot acknowledge her. I cannot put her before the world 
as Lady Farnbourne, at least as yet; but she is mine to deal with 
as I like or as she may wish, and then there is Helen. What 
can I do with her? I wish I had a friend. If Hillier were at 
home, I could tell him without reserve.” 

Walking steadily, and thinking as he walked, he found him- 
self at the corner of Piccadilly before he roused from his intro- 
spection. and through it all he saw Jeannette as she was when 
he first knew her — when his little income seemed more than 
enough for both, and he had no w’ish beyond the day when he 
w ould be his own master, free to marry her, and let the world 
know she was his wfife. The same quiet yearning moved bis 
heart, and he knew that he loved her as he had always loved 
her. 

He was calmer after leaving Mr. Channing. That gentleman’s 
advice bad not been to his liking. Gerald was, as he had said, 
thoroughly sick of secrecy. He w'ould, in his passion, have 
flung his title and his money to the winds, and gone back gladly 
to his old position and his old life in Calverton Street, where he 
had his books, his music, and Jeannette. He had never been so 
happy — never felt such ptufect restfulness as there. 

“ I said in my anger that I would tell Helen everything,” he 
mused, “ and let her marry me if she liked at her ovvn risk, but 
the thought is an insult to her. I w ill see her and tell her, and 
then — welll — then 1 feel inclined to let things drift. If I go 
with the stream I must lan<l somewhere, and wdiere does not 
matter now.” 

In that mood he found his way to Eaton Square, and bis usual 
gentle knock brought a footman to the door. Miss St. Herring- 
ton was at home, and in the drawing-room. The man was 
about to announce him, but Gerald stopped him by a touch on 
the arm. In his present impatient mood all formality seemed 
out of place. 

He w’ent into the drawing-room, and it was empty. There 
were no folding doors. The inner room was separated from the 
outer by double curtains; she might be in there, engaged with 
some other callers — women, perhaps; he hated women just now, 
and he w’ould wait. Looking idly round the apartment, he saw 
a resplenflently new hat on a chair— a cane and pair of gloves 
by its side. With some natural curiosity he drew near the cur- 
tain, and heard a sob, follow’ed by the subdued tones of a man’s 
deep voice. The pleasant voice he could have sworn to any- 
where, for it belonged to Hillier St. Herrington. 

He would have gone in on the instant, glad to see the friend 
he loved so w^ell, but the words he heard arrested him on the 
threshold. 

“ I knew you cared for me,” Hillier was saying, “ but never 
half so much as this. I have very little — some few^ hundreds — 
beyond my colonel’s pay, and that would be a poor exchange 
for Ashford Lynn and his ten or thirteen thousand. Besides, he 


A SlI^TER^S SACRIFICE. 


185 


is a good fellow; he is one of us, and you must not throw him 
over.” 

“ But, Hillier,” Gerald heard her say, “ would it not be better 
for me to tell him the truth; tell him how I love you, though 
should he still desire it I will not break my word to him. I did 
not think I could be a poor man’s wife, Hillier, but when you 
came back I thanked Heaven that you had come in time; and 
we should not be very poor. You have some few hundreds, 1 
have five, and then there is the legacy poor uncle left me.” 

“ My dear Helen,” said the soldier, with a sigh, “ if it were 
only a question of that, I could knock along with my pay very 
weU, and leave the rest to you. But Gerald is my friend. I 
took a liking to the lad from the first. If it were any one else 
I would take you quietly awa}", even if it were the night before 
the wedding; but as it is you must keep your word, and you 
will be in your proper place at Ashford Lynn.” 

“ If you were there.” 

“Next to myself you like Gerald, respect him, admire his 
character.” 

“ No man more.” 

“ And if you knew all, Helen, you would like him better 
still. Whatever may be wanting in his early training, he has 
the generous and delicate instincts of a gentleman. Do you 
know that if I cared to touch it, I have three thousand a year? 
There it is lying at my banker’s, and there it will accumulate, 
for he has fixed it so that it is irrevocably mine, and I could 
scarcely steal his bride and marry her with his money.” 

“Yes, he has noble instincts, whatever maybe wanting in 
him,” said Helen; “I must pay him that tribute. His are not 
fitful impulses that make him do one day what he would regret 
the next. You have not touched this money, Hillier?” 

“Certainly not.” 

“ And you will not?” 

“ For myself — no. I have a use for it by and by.” 

“You love me, Hillier ?” 

“ Dearest Helen — I would say my darling if I had the right — 
I have never loved any one else, and never shall, and if you 
love me, do not let my return make any change in your arrange- 
ments. Nothing would grieve me more. Years hence, my girl, 
when you are Lady Farnbourne and I am a gray haired general, 
we shall both be glad that we did our duty. I know the mean- 
ing of the word since 1 have been a soldier in earnest.” 

He did not hear her reply, but he had heard enough. H(‘ 
touched the bell. 

“ Miss St. Herrington is not here,” he said; “kindly tell her I 
am waiting.” 

At the sound of his voice, so pitched that it should be heard, 
the curtains were thrown back by Hillier’s arm. Gerald was at 
the window then, whispering to the birds that hung over the 
flowers with which the balcony was crowded. 

“ Why, Gerald,” he said, “ my dear old fellow when did you 
come ?” 


186 


A STSTER^S SACRIFICE. 


“Some few minutes since,” said Gerald, carelessly; “but let 
me look at you; and when did you come ?” 

“ Yesterday. One of the most pious acts I ever did in my 
life on the Sabbath. I thought to take you by surprise, and 
meant to look you up at once. They tell me you are staying 
at the ‘ Fogies ’—true, is it?’' 

“ Quite.’* 

“Don’t stay there too long, or you will want to be a bishop. 
Helen will be here presently. I think she has gone up-stairs. 
We were having a chat about old times, you know.” 

Gerald could not help thinking how bra’^^e the soldier w’as in 
this— braver than he had ever been even in battle. He met 
his friend with quiet pleasure, unsullied by a touch of envy, 
truly glad to see him again. 

“ Have I changed ?” he asked. 

“ You are just wdiat I expected to see from your letters,” said 
Gerald, “ you are taller and broader, with a sun-burned face, 
and a beard that becomes you immensely, and your \vounds have 
left little or no trace.” 

“ Except for this limp, but it leaves me as well as ever, though 
not quite so active. What have you been doing since I went 
away ?” 

“Nothing much. I have missed you badly, Hillier; my new 
born honors sit upon me as the mantle of Talma might on an 
English utility man. “ I am very glad to find you here. I want 
a friend just now, 

“ But you have missed me, and you bad Helen,” Hillier said, 
“ I was not surprised when you sent me the news. I do not see 
how anything better could have happened 

“Wait,” said Gerald, placing his hand on the other’s arm, 
“ ^vait till she is here. I cannot marry her, Hillier. Keep your 
anger till you have heard me; rather a long story, too, but you 
shall have the substance of it. Here is Helen. I can tell you 
both at the same time.” 

The soldier’s face had flushed, but he stood silent as Miss St. 
Derrington came in. There was no sign of tier recent tears, no 
change of countenance when she looked from the man she loved 
to the man she had to marry. 

“ I was telling Hillier how glad I am that he is here,” Gerald 
said. “ I have much to explain, Helen, but a few words will be 
best now. You remember the story I told you of mv first 
love?” 

“ I remember it well.” 

“You see, Hillier, we have no secrets from each other,” Ger- 
ald went on. “ I have nothing to learn from her; and you re- 
member, Helen, that T spoke of her as lost# You inferred that 
I meant she was dead.” 

“ And she is not. Before you say another word I can see 
what is coming.” 

“Not as you think. It came to my knowledge that this poor 
girl had been already married, and the husband she thought 
dead came back after years of absence and wanted to claim her. 
I prevented that. Although J put her from me, I could not 


A SlSTER^S SACRIFICE. 


18-? 


leave her at the mercy of a brute. When you inferred that she 
had died, I thought it best to have it so, for I knew that had we 
married, the knowledge that another who must always have 
been in some sense still dear to me was living, would have been 
bitter to you.” 

She assented silenth\ 

“ Only last Saturday this man who claimed lier met with an 
accident that must prove fatal soon, if not very soon, and 
amongst those who were present was one who insisted on her 
right to take him to her home; she w'as his wife, cast aside by 
him seven years before he married the lady to whom he laid 
claim. That it is so can be proved beyond dispute. Mr. Chan 
ning tells me that when I took her to the altar I was not legally 
of age within an hour or so, and I could invalidate the mar 
riage if I chose, but I was my own master then as I am now, 
and I am not going to try the question. There, in brief, you 
have the story.” 

“You will have to tell me all over again,” said Hillier, “ be- 
fore I can attempt to understand it. As far as I have gone, I 
see a complicated bigamy with several knots in it. What are 
you going to do ?” 

“ Let me answer that to Helen,” said Gerald, taking her hand. 
“ Helen, I can see in your eyes that you are not sorry for this. 
Hillier asks me what I am going to do; my answer is^that I 
am going back to my old love, my little wife, so brave and true 
a woman, that I may bring her to you in the hope that you will 
be her friend. May I ?” 

“ With all my heart, and I never liked you better than now\” 

“I cannot give you my title, Helen, and I cannot give you 
Ashford Lynn, but here is what you prefer more than both. 1 
am going back to ray old love; I know you will let me take you 
to yours, and if you accept this hand from me, Hillier, you can* 
not refuse the rest.” 

“ My dear fellow,” said Hillier, with a touch of his old 
familiar drawl, “ you give such good things and in such a 
princely way that one finds it hard to resist; and after all we 
are of the same kith and kin. Even tins proud heart will not 
refuse to be a little richer because we have to thank you for it.” 

Ho drew Helen to him, and her head fell upon his shoulder. 
The proud heart did not refuse, but she shed a few proud tears. 
Lord Earn bourne went out quietly and left them together. 


CHAPTER XLHI. 

TO SAY GOOD-BYE. 

When he left the house Gerald turned his steps toward Pim- 
lico, feeling that something in the way of an amende honorable 
was due to Dr. Alison. Then lie would go to Mr. Channing, 
obtain Jeannette’s address, and take her with him to the conti- 
nent, till things had settled down, and with the help of Hillier 
and Helen, he could bring her forward as his vvife. He felt 
liappier now. He found that rapid action following immedi- 


188 


A SiSTER^S SACRIFICE. 


ately on rapid resolution was best, and there should be no mote 
secrecy, no more delay. 

He was near Victoria Station when he was reminded that he 
had taken nothing since he left his hotel in the morning, and he 
went to the buffet for a glass of sherry and a biscuit or two. 
He could see the platform through the doors at one end, and 
the entrance of the station with the cab rank at the other. He 
had been there about five minutes when a train came in. 

Looking idly at the passengers as they alighted, he saw a lady 
with her veil half down leave a first-class carriage, and make 
her way toward the outlet opening into the Wilton Road. Even 
if he had not caught a glimpse of her face, the pretty foot and 
ankle and the graceful figure would have attracted him; and 
then there was the unmistakable ease and power of her walk. 
She was dressed exactly in the old style, just as he saw her for 
the first time when slie came into his room with her music roll 
and finished his tea for him. 

“ Jeannette,” he said to himself, and followed her. 

He knew by instinct where she was going. Straightly, with- 
out looking to the right or left, she went in a direct line, 
through Hindon Street and Denbigh Street, and then across the 
main thoroughfare to the turning in which stood Mrs. Horms- 
by’s house. He saw her go in. 

“ This is the hand of Providence,” he said, silently. “ My re- 
ward for doing my duty in spite of Mr. Channing. Had I not 
gone to see Helen I should not have come here now, I should 
not have seen Jeannette.” 

Five minutes later he was at the door, and, in answer to the 
bell and knocker, he heard the swift, light footsteps of the land- 
lady. He stopped her exclamation of surprise by putting his 
finger on his lip. 

“ I know,” he said. “ I saw her come in. She’s in the draw- 
ing-room.” 

“ Yes,” she answered, in a whisper, 

“ Not a word then. I want to see her before she knows I am 
here.” 

The door was partly open when he reached the landing. 
Jeannette was nearly in the middle of the room, resting one 
hand on the center table, her figure drooped, her pensive face 
downcast. The sweet face had never looked so sad to him, yet 
there was something that relieved its sadness. He knew that 
here in the old rooms, with all the old associations round her, 
she was thinking of him. 

He watched her for some time, heard her deep sigh, and saw 
her eyes begin to fill with tears. Nearly eighteen months had 
passed since he saw her last, when they parted at the door where 
he stood now. 

“ My little pet!” he said, involuntarily; “ how could I have let 
you go so long, and you had nothing to live for but me ?” 

Still remaining outside, he spoke her name very softly: 

“ Jeannette!” 

The girl started, and looked round. The door remained just 
as the landlady had left it, and there was no sound outside. 


A SISTER^S SACRIFICE. 


189 


“ I have thought of him, till 1 fancied I could hear his voice,” 
she said to herself , “ as I have heard it sometimes in my dreams. 
I should like to dream like that again, and never wake!” 

“Jeannette!” 

There it was again. This time she moveJ toward the door, 
and, as she did so, he threw it open wide, and met her with his 
face full of love. He had tried her almost too much. Another 
moment, and the tension on her heart might have been fatal. 

“ My darling!” he said. “My wife! Yes, you are my wife, 
Twill tell you all about it soon. We shall have plenty of time, 
for I never mean to let you go again, dearest! I bring you back 
myself and all my love forever!” 



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MKH. ALEX. McVElGH MILLER’S WORKS 

1. A Dreadful Temptation 

2. The Bride of the Tomb 

3. An Old Man’s Darling 

4. Queenle’s Terrible Secret 

5. Jaquelina 

6. Little Golden’s Daughter 

7. The Rose and the Lily 

8. Countess Vera 

9. Bonnie Dora 

10. Guy Kenmore’s Wife 

GEORGE ELIOT'S WORKS. 

11. Janet’s Repentance 

12. Silas Marner 

13. Felix Holt, the Radical 

<4. The Mill on the Floss 

15. Brother Jacob 

16. Adam Bede 

17. Romola 

18. Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton. 

19. Daniel Deronda 

20. Middlemarch 

21. Mr. Gilfll’s Love Story 

22. The Spanish Gypsy 

23. Impressions of Theophrastus Such 


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MISCEL1.4NEOLS WORK<. 

“ 24. The Two Orphans. By D’Ennery 10 

“ 25. Yolande. By William Black ; 20 

“ Lady Audley’s Secret. By Miss Braddon 20 

“ 27. When the Snip Comes Home. By Besant & Rice 10 

“ John Halifax, Gentleman. By Miss Mulock '. . .20 

" In Peril of his Life By Gaboriau 20 

80. The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid 10 

“ 81. Molly Bawn. By the Duchess 20 

“ 82. Portia. By the Duchess . 20 

“ 33. Kit; a Memory. By James Payne 20 

“ 34. East Lynne. By Mrs. Henry Wood 20 

“ 35. Her Mother’s Sin. By Bertha M. Clay 10 

“ 36. A Princess of Thule. By William Black 20 

“ 37. Phyllis. By the Duchess ^ 

“ 38. David Copperfleld. By Charles Dickens ^ 

" 39. Very Hard Cash. By Charles Reade 20 

“ 40. Ivanhoe. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

“ 41. Shirley. By Miss Bronte 20 

" 42. The Last Days of Pompeii. By Bulwer Lytton ^ 

“ 43. Charlotte Temple. By Miss Rowson 10 

“ 44. Dora Thorne. By Bertha M. Clay 20 

" 45. Old Curiosity Shop. By Charles Dickens 20 

“ 46. Camille. By Alex. Dumas, Jr 10 

“ 47. The Three Guardsmen. By Alex. Dumas % 

" 48. Jane Eyre By Charlotte Bronte ^ 

“ 49. Romance of a Poor Young Man. By Feulllet 10 

“ 50. Back to the Old Home. By Mary Cecil Hay 10 

“ 51. Maggie; or, the Loom Girl of Lowell. By William Mason iSimer, M. D.20 

“ 52. Two Wedding Rings. By Margaret Blount ^ 

“ 53. Led Astray. By Helen M. Lewis 20 

“ 54. A Woman’s Atonement. By Adah M. Howard JJO 

“ 55. False. By Geraldine Fleming ^ 

“ 56. The Curse of Dangerfleld. By Elsie Snow ^ 

“ 57. Ten Years of His Life. By Eva Evergreen ^ 

“ 58. A Woman’s Fault. By Evelyn Gray ^ 

“ 59. Twenty Years After. By Alex. Dumas ^ 

“ 60. A Queen Amongst Women and Between Two Sins. By Bertha M. Clay.^ 

“61. Madolin’c iiover. By Bertha M. Clay. . ^ 

“ 62. Thaddeus of Warsaw. By Jane Porter 20 

“ 63. Lucile. By Owen Meredith 20 

“ 64. Charles Auchester. By E. Berger 20 

“ 65. A Strange Story. Bv Bulwer ! 20 

“ 66. Aurora Floyd. By Miss Braddon 20 

“ 67. Barbara’s History. By Amelia B. Edwards 20 

“ 68. Called to Account. By Annie Thomas *. 20 

“ 69. Old Myddleton’s Money. By Mary Cecil Hay 20 

“ 70. Thorns and Orange Blossoms. By Bertha M. Clay. Complete 10 


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Remember that we do not charge extra for postage. Munro’s Library will be 
sent to any part of the world, single numbers for 10 cents, double numbers for 
20 cents. 

NORMAN L. Mttwro, PUBLISHER, 

^ * 24 & 26 Vandewatbr St., N. Y. 





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